Year R- Joan Proctor

During Science week, we have been celebrating women in Science. We learned all about a woman called Joan Beauchamp Procter who was born in 1897 and was a British zoologist, internationally recognised as an outstanding herpetologist. She worked initially at the British Museum (Natural History) and later for the Zoological Society of London, as the first female Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo.

The children enjoyed learning about her love of reptiles and how she designed the zoos reptile house, which is still used today. It was the first of it's kind and she wanted the creatures to have something that was as close to their natural habitat as possible. We then had a look at our minibeast hotel in the garden and thought about how we could improve it.

The children were so excited to find lots of different minibeasts. We spoke about their similarities and differences, how they move as well as what they might need for their habitat. The children talked about improving the bug hotel by adding lots of different size sticks and logs, grass, leaves, rocks and soil.