Keighley Creative’s Pledges to the Landscape

Keighley Creative and the Yorkshire Peat Partnership wanted to give primary school-age children the opportunity to get hands-on with bogs, helping them develop their understanding of environmental science whilst improving their creative skills. The goal was to create a totemic artwork embedded in the landscape that would also help to restore peatlands on Denton Reserve, above Ilkley. Thus, Pledges to the Landscape was born.

Local school children from Year 5 at Eastwood, Victoria, Riddlesden St. Mary’s, Worth Valley, Holycroft and Merlin Top primaries were invited to join in the project and classes were given their own “micro-peatbogs” to look after. The aim was to deepen the children’s understanding of the special bogs and landscapes around us without travelling to them.

Naseem and Lucy then ran interactive workshops in school where the children studied the bogs using hand-lenses and identification cards and used their senses to observe the plants within them. They then used their drawing skills to record their discoveries and experiences. The workshops allowed the children to get creative in the classroom whilst learning about the environment around them and the importance of Yorkshire’s peatlands, their plants and wildlife.

Click here to watch their YouTube video.