Exploring Plant Biodiversity at Our School

Our students from 1st ESO in the bilingual programme have been working on a project and they wanted to share with us a report about their discoveries. Keep on reading to know more about their research:

Objective of the activity:
To discover how many and what types of herbaceous plants grow in the green areas of the school, and to assess their biodiversity.

How did we do it?

Fieldwork:
We went out to the schoolyard and randomly placed a 1-meter square or circle in four different areas of the lawn. In each area:

• We took a photo.
• We counted how many different species were present.
• We recorded how many individuals of each species there were.
• We identified the plants using guides, apps like PlantNet, or dichotomous keys.

Data organization:
Each group created a table with their results and photos. Then, all the data were combined to get an overall view.

What did we learn?

• Several species of herbaceous plants were identified.
• The Margalef biodiversity index was calculated:
  For herbaceous plants, the index was 3.4, which indicates medium biodiversity.

Conclusion:
Although there is a variety of plants, biodiversity in the school’s green areas is limited, probably due to the small space available . Therefore, students proposed ideas to improve it, such as planting more species or creating small gardens.