Primary 7 Children win trip to ECOS Centre

It was the 29th May 2009 when my class and I headed to the Ecos Centre in Ballymena. It was free (except for the bus) as we had won it by entering a ‘Smokebusters’ competition earlier in the year. P7b came with us too.
            When we were approaching the building in the bus, I thought that the building was a peculiar shape. It looked like a cuboid with a cylinder cut in half on top. It was huge and was surrounded by lots of green land, wild life and flowers. It had a lake the whole way around it and we had to cross a bridge to get onto the island. We were told that at night they raise the bridge so that no intruders can come on and disturb the wildlife.
            Outside the centre itself were giant recycling bins shaped like minibeasts. We all got our photographs taken and were divided up into groups. Each group had a leader. Our group leader was Ros and she was very knowledgeable about the environment and how we can protect it.
The first exhibit was a machine that burned wood pellets and it along with huge solar panels on the roof powered the whole centre. We visited some other rooms with interactive activities about the environment. We also learned how a bit of light can power a fan which is pretty amazing if you ask me. We also learned that some birds can camouflage in wood and bees have a virus that’s killing them colony by colony. Another piece of interesting information was that a baby is born every few seconds and that orang-utan means ‘man of the forest’. They are also becoming extinct. After that we went pond dipping which was very enjoyable. We found lots of insects and bugs that we didn’t even know existed!
There were many ducks in the lake and we saw a beautiful swan. There was a small island in the middle where we saw a swan’s nest that contained lots of eggs. Next we went to see the biggest bottle Bank in Ireland. We got to walk up steps to it and throw bottles in. After a while we went through two leafy arches made with willow trees. One was easy to get through the smaller one was tricky for some of us though. As we were walking back to get our lunch, Ros told us about a skate park that comes every summer. It sounded pretty cool! During lunch we were allowed to play in the activity park and we all really enjoyed it.
Finally it was time for home. The day at the Ecos centre was a great experience for me and my class and I would definitely recommend it for other schools and for a family day out.

Extracts by Éadaoin, Matthew, Katie, Megan, Clare, Caitlin,Odhran and Ciaran