It was a beautiful sunny Friday and the whole of Year 7 was excited to go to Kew Gardens. Once we arrived there, we split into our groups and my group had a lesson run by a very kind member of staff from Kew. My group and I learnt how to test the acidity and temperature of soil, how intense the sunlight is and the coverage of plants. This was very interesting as most of us had never heard of these things! We then explored the Palm House and we found out a lot of facts; for example we discovered a plant that can kill certain cancers and a tree that smells of cheesy feet to attract flies! We were all shocked to discover these facts, especially after smelling the cheesy feet tree (!)

After lunch we explored the Temperate House in groups of 3-5, figuring out clues to lead us to the plants which gave us freedom to go where we wanted in the house. My group was looking EVERYWHERE for the clues which meant we learnt a lot because we read all the signs, then we finally realised we were completely on the wrong side of the house! We learnt about a plant named the same as a bird (kiwi plant), poisonous plants that are actually medicine (sago palm) and a pink trumpet vine which had such a strange name.

After an extremely fun day out, we were all so disappointed to leave. On the coach ride back everyone was reminiscing about the fun activities and what their favourite part of the day was. Once we were back at school, we had a short session on our day out then finished with writing our own poem/rap/song about our exciting day. Thank you so much to all the geography teachers and other staff who helped on the trip.

Sophia D, Year 7