Spring Bulbs for Schools

Investigation results 2006-2010

Huge thanks!

Professor Plant would like to thank all of the school scientists that have sent in records this year!

You are all Super Scientists!

Since October 2005, school scientists across Wales have been keeping weather records and noting when their flowers open, as part of a long-term study looking at the effects of temperature on spring bulbs.

The investigation...

70 schools took part!

They posted their results on the web.

Average flowering dates 2008-2009 Weather records 2008-2009

Bulb – blog & Twitter Pupils sent in

questions for Professor plant & reported that they enjoyed the project and learnt a lot about plants and our climate.

To see their questions and comments see the bulb-blog

Eyton Primary School, Wrexham

Farm trip, certificates & daffodils funded by…

Winners 2010 – Pentrepoeth Junior School, Morriston, Swansea & home educated families.

A long term study…

Our climate is changing and so are our seasons. Over the next 10-20 years (and hopefully more) we want school scientists to show how climate change is affecting flowering times in spring bulbs.

In the short term there is plenty for schools to study.

Our records show that spring 2010 was much colder than in previous years.

Average temperature °C 2005-6 2006-7 2007-8 2008-9 2009-10

Nov 6 7.5 7.4 6.9 8

Dec 4.2 6 4.9 3.5 3

Jan 4 6.5 6.1 2.9 1.2

Feb 3.6 5 5 3.9 2.4

March 4.6 6.4 5.6 6.2 5.1

All months 4.48 6.28 5.8 4.68 3.94

Average temperatures 2006 - 2010

2006

20072008

2009

2010

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Year

Av

era

ge

te

mp

era

ture

(C

)

Average temperatures were very low…

Many schools had to close for a few weeks because we had so much snow!

Really Welsh Farm 11/01/10.

Average hours of sunshine 2006 - 2010

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

Year

Ho

urs

And there wasn’t much sunshine…

Average spring flowering dates 2006-2010

19/03/200606/03/2007 14/02/2008

07/03/2009

24/03/2010

01/02

06/02

11/02

16/02

21/02

26/02

03/03

08/03

13/03

18/03

Year

Date

As a result the average flowering date for all our spring flowers was later than before.

Farmers growing daffodils at the Really Welsh Company – also reported that their daffodils opened 4 to 5 weeks later than usual.

Average flowering date

Crocus Daffodil

All schools 2010 06/03/2010 24/03/2010

All schools 2009 13/03/2009 07/03/2009

All schools 2008 16/02/2008 14/02/2008

All schools 2007 16/02/2007 06/03/2007

All schools 2006 25/02/2006 19/03/2006

School scientists found that the majority of the flowers didn’t open until March 2010, which is late, as we would expect with such a cold spring.

We may have had a cold winter but our world is still heating up!

With all these cold winters you may be thinking that the world is getting colder –not warmer – but this isn’t the case. Global warming is still happening and we still need to reduce our CO2 emissions.

Despite UK temperatures plummeting to - 22 degrees in places, globally, January 2010 was the warmest on record!