INSPIRING young people to engage with nature is critical to resetting the relationship between people and wildlife over the years to come.
But one river conservation project has gone a step further than just inspiring local youngsters.
Working with professional film makers and animators they have harnessed the creativity of the children at a primary school close to a historic new fish pass that the project has built to help endangered shad fish on the River Severn.
The children’s drawings, voices, and stop-motion animations have been used to create a charming animated short film that will spread awareness even further.
The film was produced with the very creative input of the children of Cherry Orchard Primary School together with project staff from Unlocking the Severn and professional film makers and animations from biggerhouse films.
Over the course of four days, more than 180 year five and year six children took part in the workshops for Unlocking the Severn. Whilst the whole school of more than 600 children were involved in colouring pictures of the shad fish and contributing sound effects.
Mark Miles, teacher at Cherry Orchard Primary School said: “There has been such a buzz in school about joining up with this conservation project.
“Every day since the animation workshops children have been asking when they can watch the finished film! Now they’ve seen it, they think it’s amazing and are so excited to spot their own artwork.”
Unlocking the Severn is a conservation and river engagement project led by Canal & River Trust and partners: the Severn Rivers Trust, the Environment Agency and Natural England.
Visit www.unlockingthesevern.co.uk for more.
