Inspiring Business by Sharing Success

Local School and Environmental Consultancy team up for Science Project

Local School and Environmental Consultancy team up for Science Project

Richard Sutton, director of local environmental consultancy Ivy House Environmental, was delighted to be able to step up when a school in Long Eaton recently asked for help with their KS2 Science Project about the enviornment, rainfall, water supply and shortages.


English Martyrs Catholic Voluntary Academy have raised money for a school building project in Bunkpurugu, Ghana and these recently raised funds have paid for a fresh water borehole, pump and water tanks for the school in Ghana. To help the students have a better understanding of their Science topic and the challenges faced by the people in Ghana, the school considered having their own freshwater borehole drilled in the school field. With the groundwater being used to tend to plants, maintain birdbaths and provide drinking water for wildlife.

With excellent working relationships in the industry Ivy House Environmental enlisted the help of Nottinghamshire-based Van-Elle, the UKs leading geotechnical, piling and foundation engineering contractors, to help provide a drilling rig for the project.

Throughout the day the students were able to view the drilling of three boreholes, inspect the core-samples produced and investigate the different strata present beneath their school.

Sutton says, “Being able to help young studentsdevelop an interest in the natural environment is important and if we can make it fun along the way (and maybe inspire a few budding geologists and scientists) everyone benefits. Our thanks go to Van-Elle as well for their help, they were the perfect partners for the English Martyrs school project.”

Three boreholes were drilled to depths of four metres and groundwaterwater was, thankfully, present in all of them, with sufficient volumes present to enable the school to make full use of their resource. The childen were shown how to extract water from the wells and gained an appreciation of how different fresh groundwater is from the water that runs from their taps.

Jo Pettifer, English Martyrs’ Science Leader who led this project explains, “Thanks to the generous help of both companies, this fascinating demonstration has generated excitement and curiosity in the students and was taught in the most engaging way possible. Their understanding of how important water is in our environment increases by the day.”


< Back