#529: NHBS: the place for Christmas gifts for the Natural Historian in your life

NHBS started out as the Natural History Book Service.

These days they sell a wide range of equipment and resources for those interested in wildlife and natural history. whether that's books, binoculars or bird boxes... and that's just the B's....

The perfect place to buy Christmas gifts for nature lovers... give Amazon a miss this Christmas...

#511: Equipment: Hand Lenses

One of the aspects of preparing for the new GCSE specification will be the need to fork out some cash for equipment.

This will include the development of a toolkit ready for investigating natural history on the school site and beyond.

Hand Lenses are available in different magnifications.

x10 is a useful magnification for scanning a specimen but x20 is best for looking at detail.

Where can they be purchased from?

Here's one NHBS option.

What is your preferred stockist for this sort of equipment?

Do you go for quality? If so, how can a group have one of these each and keep within a reasonable budget?

The cost of equipment such as this will need to be factored in to planning for introducing the GCSE Natural History into any school. And that will just be the start of the expense...

#387: NHBS - a place to buy equipment for fieldwork

Any school planning to offer the GCSE Natural History will probably need to purchase a range of equipment for some of the skills and fieldwork elements - if those are retained from the original consultation.

Here's the wording from the original consultation document, which is only advisory and not the final text of course.

Safe use of techniques for monitoring/detecting organisms. For example: Longworth traps, moth traps, camera traps, satellite tags, methods for monitoring reptiles, using photographs, bat detectors, bird ringing, etc. Use of indirect evidence (e.g. signs, tracks, landscape analysis) Use of Identification charts

The NHBS shop offers a range of equipment which would be valuable for fieldwork in the field of Natural History.

They sell books as well...

#238: Watkins and Doncaster

Watkins and Doncaster are a firm that many schools are likely to be in touch with when they are preparing to teach the new GCSE Natural History specification for the first time.

Any school planning to offer the GCSE Natural History will probably need to purchase a range of equipment for some of the skills and fieldwork elements - if those are retained from the original consultation. It is unlikely that many will have everything they need for the new specification. This is also one additional 'cost' involved for schools which want to offer the new specification and which might therefore prevent some colleagues who might want to be involved from being able to add it to the subjects they offer.

Here's the wording from the original consultation document, which is only advisory and not the final text of course.

Safe use of techniques for monitoring/detecting organisms. For example: Longworth traps, moth traps, camera traps, satellite tags, methods for monitoring reptiles, using photographs, bat detectors, bird ringing, etc. Use of indirect evidence (e.g. signs, tracks, landscape analysis) Use of Identification charts

They will need some equipment for fieldwork and also to train students in the techniques they need - the teachers will need to upskill themselves first of all, so liaison between biologists, geographers and others will be essential...

The firm sells some useful equipment for entomological work (insects) and geology.