Going Beyond Six Legs of Summer

6th leg going beyond the six legs of summer

6th Leg - Going Beyond Six Legs of Summer

Welcome to the sixth leg of Six Legs of Summer. Your final challenge is to boldly go beyond what we’ve shown you. You might choose to explore the natural world, contribute to a public science programme, build a bee hotel, or enter a photography competition. We’ll be showing you lots of ways you can help British insects.

Don’t be afraid to give things a go. Think about the activities you most enjoyed doing during Six Legs of Summer and choose something that will enable you to use your talents.

You can read some ideas here or watch our video:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cd5tSa-DLXs

Explore a nature reserve

There are nature reserves all over the
UK . They are vital for wildlife conservation and are also beautiful natural spaces for people to visit. You can find a nature reserve near you on the website for the Wildlife Trusts.

Random acts of wildness

Make a random act of wildness to help connect yourself and others to our natural world. You might:

Notice nature – spend ten minutes in one place and notice which insects and other wildlife visit this spot.
Tune in to Nature – switch off all your devices for a day and spend time enjoying the natural world by looking and listening.
Leave wild flower seeds on a park benches for someone else to find and grow.
Go ‘Plogging’ – combining jogging with picking up plastic litter

Photography competitions

There are frequent wildlife photography competitions you can enter. Here are a couple that are currently running this summer:

Luminar Bug Photography Awards 2020 from invertebrate charity, Buglife and Photocrowd, includes categories for mobile phone photography and Young Bug Photographer which is free to enter for 13-17 year olds.
The National Insect Week photography competition is open until 31st October and has a category for young photographers under 18 years. You can submit up to three photos.

Citizen science

You can take an active role in insect conservation by contributing your sightings to the national database. The Biological Records Centre website has a list of recording schemes covering a huge array of insects including ladybirds, hover flies, shield bugs, bees, butterflies and moths, dragonflies and damselflies, and grasshoppers.

Take the quiz

When you have tried out our activity, have a go at our online quiz. You can also let us know what you think.

Share what you’re doing

We’d love to know what you’re doing to help British insects. You can share what you’re doing by emailing us at hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk or tagging us on social media at @morethanadodo.

Good Luck!