Plant Dramas at Lunt Meadows
Plant Dramas has been working with the Mesolithic and Modern Life project at the Lunt Meadows Nature Reserve in Merseyside, a project led by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust in collaboration with Liverpool Museums and the University of Chester and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Lunt Meadows is a wetland nature reserve and a Sustainable Urban Drainage Scheme (SUDS), which protects the surrounding villages from flooding from the River Alt. During the construction of the scheme, several archaeological sites were discovered. These date to the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, a period when Europe was inhabited by communities of hunter-gatherers. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust and its partners have been using the archaeological evidence from the site to teach local communities about the changing human and environmental history of the area as a way of engaging people with the importance of nature conservation.
As part of Plant Dramas, students from the School for the Creative Industries (University of Chester) wrote and performed a series of short plays and songs to teach children about the different plant and animal species that live at Lunt Meadows, the ecological relationships they form, and their roles in the human history. As the project progresses, we will be creating new resources so that local schools can create their own performances based on the wildlife at this and other nature reserves.