On the 22nd November last year, Friends of Elder Park, members of staff from the SHIP research group, children involved in the world record, and lots of volunteers planted daffodil bulbs and wild flowers (kindly provided by Glasgow City Council Parks department) in Elder Park as part of a project for Glasgow’s Green Year 2015.
Why Elder Park? John Elder was an engineer/scientist and his wife Isabella Elder a philanthropist and supporter of women in science bought the land and dedicated the park in memory of her husband for use by the local community. She was an great women and in 1892 persuaded Glasgow University to accept women into medicine.
In addition the reason for selecting Daffodils was the link to the Marie Curie cancer care charity and the promotion of women in science – Marie Curie and of course furthering the beliefs of Isabella Elder. Children were therefore also given Marie Curie ‘little pots of care’ (a daffodil bulb, pot and compost) to take home with them.
In order to promote the science theme we linked the hand hygiene theme to this message. Therefore after the bulb planting, staff from the SHIP research group showed the children how to wash their hands properly using the 6-step technique – a technique supported by evidence from SHIP research.