STRIDERS BIG ADVENTURE DIARY
Striders Diary - Thursday 26 October 2006
 Striders Big Adventure |
Hello everyone!
Today I visited a couple of schools in Falkirk who had invited me to meet their green school groups.
Dunipace Primary School
There has been a school in Dunipace since 1696, but the current building is only about 15 years old. Their school bell is over 130 years old though!
The school is really keen on the eco-schools scheme, and has a group (with a representative of each class) which meets during lunchtime to discuss what they can do to make their school greener.
I had been invited along to discuss my adventures, and how to encourage Walking to School. The group was full of great ideas, and have decided to show a PowerPoint presentation to the whole school to explain why walking is so great. It was wonderful to see how enthusiastic they all were!
Wallacestone Primary School
I then went to visit Wallacestone primary school. They are also really serious about the eco-school scheme. They have just started WoW, where pupils who walk to school once a week for a month are rewarded with a badge. They are holding an assembly next week to reward all the walkers, so they were discussing this.
They also had a really cool walking noticeboard - showing pictures of all their walk to school activities. They took lots of pictures of me for their board, and I was given loads of wonderful hugs by some of the girls.
I blushed bright pink because of all the attention! They were really nice hugs though.
Falkirk Wheel, Falkirk
I then went to visit the canals.
A canal is a channel of water used by barges, which carry goods from place to place. Unlike rivers, canals are usually level, so the water in canals doesn’t flow.
When the canal needs to go down hill they install a lock –two big gates to hold the water back. The boatman drives the boat into the lock and closes the gate behind him. He then opens the second gate, and lets the water flow out until the boat is at the same level as the canal, then he drives the boat out. If there is a big hill there may be lots of locks one after another.
Falkirk is at the end of two canals – the Forth & Clyde Canal, and the Union Canal. Originally these linked the two sides of Scotland, and meant you could travel from coast to coast by barge. Parts of the canals had fallen into disrepair and been filled in because they were not being used.
To celebrate the year 2000 they decided to reopen the whole canal network for tourist boats. They had demolished the 11 locks which joined the two canals, so they replaced it with a giant wheel the height of eight double-decker buses. The boats float along a raised bridge into giant gondolas which hold 300 tonnes of water and up to 8 boats. The wheel then rotates and the boats can be lowered into the other canal.
It is amazing to watch. There is a giant cog which turns to lower the boats, and the whole thing looks like an alien claw tearing at the water surface.
I would have loved to travel on a canal boat actually on the wheel, but I still have a few places to go before the end of my journey so I had to get going.
See where I have been
You can now follow my journey on a map. Check it out!I can't continue my journey without your help - so keep walking!
On Thursday, 228 Walks to School were recorded on my website. Thank you to everyone who has helped me on my way. Find out how to record your journeys to school, and keep me on my Big Adventure. Keep walking!
Photo credits:Lynne Slavin, Le Scribbler
Published Friday 27 October 2006
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