Barcombe

This site is dedicated to the work being conducted at Barcombe School on reeds. It will provide users with up-to-date information on the schools progress put together by the pupils and teachers within a research framework.

After an initial visit to the Heart of Reeds land sculpture on the Lewes Railway Land Local Nature Reserve on 18 January 2006, the pupils began to ask questions about the reeds themselves. Here are a selection:

• How do reeds stand up?


• What are the little dotty things on the leaves?


• Why do reeds have leaves?


• What do reeds feed on?


• Is it harder for the reed to drink water as it gets taller like sucking and sucking to get it to the top?


• Does it die at a certain height, like it couldn’t suck water to the top?


• How do reeds spread?


• What happens if a pond dries up because of the reeds draining all the water?

Pupils will begin to work through these questions and others, and the hypotheses they generate over the next two months will be mapped out using the Knowledge Forum software. The pupils will work alongside their class teacher Mr Cobb with input from Derek Lamport, visiting Professor of biology at the University of Sussex, as appropriate.