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<\/a><\/p>\nPoole teamed up with\u00a0Norfolk Beekeepers Association president\u00a0Frank Walker at Landstown Elementary School\u00a0Oct. 26\u00a0to get students\u2019 ideas on how honey can be used in foods and to show them how honey is extracted.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many of you knew that you have your own beehive at Landstown Elementary?\u201d Walker asked as students eagerly raised their hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutstanding!\u201d Walker replied as he began describing the video behind him showing how a beekeeper outfitted in his full suit taking frames out of a bee box \u2013 the same one that is located under a giant Oak tree at the front of the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to have a hive in your backyard to be a beekeeper,\u201d Walker shared. \u201cA beekeeper is someone who knows the importance of honey bees and then promotes and protects them.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the video, students lined up to see three designated fifth-grade assistants rolling an uncapping tool on the frames and to get a sneak peek inside the extractor tank filled with honey.<\/p>\n
For students these were two exciting presentations since, thanks to their school\u2019s gifted resource teacher Kim Bielmann, classes have been researching how vanishing pollinators are important contributors to the world\u2019s food supply.<\/p>\n Bielmann and other gifted cluster teachers started the project four years ago as a problem-based learning opportunity. Second graders study hummingbirds. Third graders study bats. Fourth graders study monarch butterflies and fifth graders study honeybees.<\/p>\n That project has since grown into Landstown not only embracing sustainability, but in students taking action to help the world \u2013 even creating an outdoor learning lab thanks to funding from the Virginia Beach Education Foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gave them the authentic task, they researched it and came up with ideas on how they could positively impact the issue,\u201d Bielmann states. \u201cOne of the parents who was an architect came in to talk to them about the design and from there we put them in interest groups and they made choices about where it was going to be, the budget and we even took them to Home Depot to learn about products.\u201d<\/p>\n The following year, Bielmann secured another grant \u2013 this time for a bee box at the school, an idea suggested by one of the students. Students painted the box and Walker, who also assists with Kellam High School\u2019s Pollen-Nation beekeeping club, provided the colony.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n