Beans mean prizes!

In connection with our 'Darwin's Voyage of Discovery' exhibition (24 January to 18 April 2009), we ran a broad bean competition, from January to July 2009.

The aim of the competition was to experiment with phototropism, or the way plants grow towards the light. This experiment was first undertaken by the great Charles Darwin himself!

Many schools from the local area took part with varying degrees of success – some losing most of their plants over the Easter break, others finding plants damaged in the school grounds. In all, five different schools managed to get some beans to grow, with another six schools ‘nearly growing’ theirs!

The top three placed schools were as follows:

1st – Mannamead Pupil Referral Unit

2nd - Boringdon Primary School

3rd - Devonport High School for Boys

Despite all the problems, we had a great time encouraging the pupils to grow their crops, and hopefully they all enjoyed eating the fruits of their labour – with not too many side effects (parp!).

The prizes were donated by Rocket Gardens of West Cornwall, who kindly provided three 'autumn/winter vegetable gardens' as the top prizes - plus extras for the first placed school!

Take a look at the image gallery to see how the schools got on.