Produced by the Central Electricity Generating Board for The Council for Environmental Education, an educational film looking at the working of the Drakelaw Nature Studies Centre. Build in woodland surrounding Drakelaw Power Station near Burton-on-Trent in East Staffordshire, the centre provides a safe outdoor location where pupils from local schools can be taught environmental education. The film following several classes of children from different age groups as they go about their studies...

Produced by the Central Electricity Generating Board for The Council for Environmental Education, an educational film looking at the working of the Drakelaw Nature Studies Centre. Build in woodland surrounding Drakelaw Power Station near Burton-on-Trent in East Staffordshire, the centre provides a safe outdoor location where pupils from local schools can be taught environmental education. The film following several classes of children from different age groups as they go about their studies in woodland or back in the classroom. In a tree a bird singing, on the ground a groups of primary school children in a wood taking notes as part in a field trip to learn about nature. Title: The Council for Environmental Education presents Learning by Discovery The children continue their field trip in environmental education, the study of the world in which we live, looking at tress, leaves and other plant life growing in the woodland glade. A bee lands in a pink coloured flower, possibly a Fireweed, to collect its nectar. Nearby another pink coloured flower, the Foxglove. The children gather around a large Horse chestnut tree, a teacher showing them the leaves growing on it. A conifer tree with cones growing on it is followed by a montage of other trees species growing in the woods with variously colour leaves. Four girls walk along a trail to a look at another tree with yellow flowers. More trees and bushes growing in the wood changes to the girls now counting, measuring, and making notes on wildflowers growing in a patch; Red Campion, Buttercups, Germander speedwell feature. In another part of the field two boys use a net to catch insects while a group nearby speak with their teacher about their findings. Another group shakes the branches of a tree catching various insects in a net. The teacher comes over to observe as one of them uses an instrument to pick up a beetle and drop it into a beaker of liquid. Nearby two girls walk along a track and almost trip over a collection of smashed snail shells around a stone. As they look down to examine it the teacher comes over and explains this is a Thrushes Anvil. Another group of six pupils conduct an experiment by places a sample of soil into a tube of distilled water and dye. Using an indicator sheet, they check the soils PH levels. Two girls find and look over an eggshell found in the grass pointing up at a crow flying overhead. In another part of the glade two girls watch as two snails crawl across a stone, one of them getting up stings herself on a nettle. Nearby she finds a Bitter dock leaf rubbing it on the wound to relive the itchiness. As the children continue to examine the trees in the wood, in voiceover the teacher explains that they all live in a town and have never examined trees in detail before. One pupil examines a leaf and uses and identification booklet to discover what tree it comes from. Around them another pupil doing the same before both pupils begin to draw the leaf on a pad. A pair of hands hold and look over a series of evergreen trees, in voiceover a teacher provides specific details of what they are. Another pair of hands holds up a small sapling to show its roots changes the bare ground under a Beech tree followed by rich vegetation growing under a Birch. As the film’s narrator asks some of the questions often asked by children, two other pupils look through though grass to find pinecones. A group wonder along a trail through the wood changes to two others doing a bark rubbing. Sitting on a small branch nearby a baby Little owl, pupils stand around it as one of them picks it up and examines it. She takes it over to the girls doing the bark rubbing, everyone tries to stroke it as the teacher comes over. With Drakelow Power Station in the background one of the pupils writes and reads a poem they have written about this field trip. General views of the power station follow with the woodland where the pupils are visiting nearby. Carrying nets, a class of pupils and their teacher make their way towards a stream, in the background the four large cooling towers of power station. They cross a bridge and along the banks of the stream some of the pupils use their nets to collection plant and animal samples from the water. In the water a colony of tadpoles with the pupils looking at them with interest. Along the banks of the stream groups of pupils conducting their own examinations of life growing or living on or around the water. One pupil holds a tadpole in her hand while others throw their nets into the water to see what they can find. One of the nets is brought in revealing a tube attached to the end. A boy holds it up to look at an insect swimming about inside. Four girls hold up their tubes also looking at what is inside them, a boy uses a magnifying glass to take a closer look at the content of his tube. Near the bridge excitement as a frog is caught with the teacher holding it in his hands. Placing it into a glass Kilner jar the frog is passed around for everyone to see before being released back into the stream. With the power station in the background a pair of hands cut the stem of a large Cow parley to show its internal working. The camera pulls back to reveal two chimneys at the power station. Two fungi growing in grass changes to show an insulator at the power station, in voiceover the narrator explains how man has copied nature in its designs for the power station. The school group from the stream walk along a path changing to a pupil using an instrument to measure the height of one of the cooling towers, two other pupils assist writing down results in a notebook. Another group of pupils carrying spaces and forks walk into a field and begin digging up the turf to do a soil profile. With the teacher providing details in voiceover, a hand holding a ruler shows the changes in colour of the soil. One of the boys continue to dig deeper with samples taken from the spade and placed in plastic bags for examination later. With samples now collected the hole is filled in and the turf returned before they leave carrying their tools with them. In a classroom at the study centre a teacher asks her pupils to correlate the information gather the previous day to see if there is difference between the dark and light areas of the woodland. Around one table three girls look over notes while one of them glues two different leaf samples to a sheet of paper. On another tables prints are made of various leaves while on another a graph is produced which is then hung from a wall. Other pieces of work produced by the pupils now also hang from the wall. Three boys around one table work to make a soil profile using the soil samples seen being collected previously. Back outside near to the power station fence a group of sixth-form pupils working on a grassy hillside produced when the station was built. Drawings and notes are made as they look at how nature has reclaimed the land following construction work. Measurements are also taken of the weeds and plants now growing while one boy finds and bags up an owl pellet. The cooling towers of Drakelaw are reflected in the still waters of a nearby pond and a Dragonfly flies over the water and rests on the grasses and reeds growing nearby. Two of the sixth formers use nets seen previously with tubes on the end to collect samples from the water. Using small magnifying glasses, they both look at the content of their tubes. Nearby another female student uses a trowel to dig up a soil sample placing it into a plastic bag. In a laboratory at the field centre she conducts experiments on the sample writing results in a notebook. The two older pupils seen collecting samples from the pond now prepare droplets of water for viewing under a microscope. A montage of various microscopic creatures found in the water follows. As the first student puts away her lab equipment, on benches nearby other in her class creates graphs plotting plant populations. On another bench the boy who found the owl pellet dissects it using pairs of tweezers extracting a mouse skull placing them to the side beside other bones. The film comes to an end with another field group walking through the woods look at the wildlife around them and sunlight coming through leaves on a tree. Title: This film was presented to The Council for Environmental Education by the Central Electricity Generating Board Credit Direction Marc Broadway Photography Norman Roundell Script Ray Shekell Commentary Harry Soan Executive Producer Tom Snasdell Title: A Marc Broadway Production Title: The End End title: Central Electricity Generating Board copyright