Teaching the teachers of tomorrow

Despite the pandemic, over the past four years of the project, we have been fortunate to work with many schools in the Cumbernauld area. During this time, we have delivered both Early Connections and Natural Connections sessions for pupils and teachers – in both Primary and Secondary schools – across Cumbernauld. The pandemic has made us ever more aware of

Planting seeds for the future

The last few months have seen the Cumbernauld Living Landscape project engage and support a wonderful group of young people and leaders from the 20th Cumbernauld Girl Guide Group – keen to experience the joys of habitat creation first-hand. Wildflower Meadow Sowing event at Seafar Woods in March 2022: The 20th Cumbernauld Girl Guide Group – as well as some

I’ll miss Cumbernauld’s amazing people!

After a fantastic six months, I will soon be leaving Cumbernauld Living Landscape and wanted to take the chance to share some of my highlights from my time here. In my previous role at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, I had the privilege of helping with Cumbernauld Living Landscape projects and saw first-hand how fantastic they were for the local communities

A New Beginning

Sadly I have come to the end of my time as a Creating Natural Connections Trainee with Cumbernauld Living Landscape, so I wanted to take some time to reflect on my past few months helping to protect and enhance Cumbernauld’s many green spaces! Months ago I came to the project desperate to expand my knowledge and to develop more skills

Learning to love the greenspaces on our doorsteps

Learning to love the greenspaces on our doorsteps Last week I had the pleasure to join an education session at Cumbernauld Academy. The secondary school is perfect for outdoor activities, the Glen is right on their doorstep! We discussed how nature is great for our health and wellbeing and practised grounding activities. The grounding activities allowed students to connect with

Wild About Woodlands

Our final Early Connections session of the 2021 needed to be something suitably celebratory. We wanted our last session of the year to be one to remember – so I, along with Cumbernauld Living Landscape trainees Alex Paterson and Rozelle McMillan, arranged with John Green, Principal Teacher at Woodlands Primary, to do a suitably festive Wild About Woodlands themed sessions

A sticky end?

It’s not always in the moment that you realise how poignant an occurrence is – in the grand scheme of things. This is exactly what emerged this week when I visited Abronhill Primary to deliver a Creating Natural Connections session to their upper primary school children. Having been split into 3 groups – the beetle group I recall – had

No more blah, blah, blah – young voices call for action  

“No more blah blah blah” – this was Greta Thunberg’s message to world leaders on the first day of COP26, at a rally in Govan Festival Park. The 18 year-old climate activist is the voice of youth at this momentous conference – they want to be heard, and they want to see real leadership and action. Since Greta started her

To Bread or not to Bread: A Guide to Feeding Your Local Swans

St Maurice’s Pond is an excellent spot to see new life this summer. Lots of different birds are currently raising their young; mallards, tufted ducks, swans, coots, moorhens and many more. Feeding and watching waterfowl is a good wellbeing activity and is known to help with anxiety and depression. But how can we ensure we are feeding them the right

Fabulous Fungi!

Local resident and Cumbernauld Living Landscape volunteer Josh Chambers,  has been out and about in Cumbernauld’s fantastic green spaces again and has found some fabulous fungi! On an early morning walk I stumbled across these tiny toadstools. I am not able to tell what kind they are or anything like that, but I can appreciate them. I can appreciate that