MORE than 500 schoolchildren across the Wye Valley are busy pond dipping and surveying water quality ahead of this year’s Wye Valley River Festival.

The fortnight-long event was last held in 2014 and attracted 20,000 visitors to a 60-mile stretch of the River Wye. It will be launched in Hereford on April 29 and culminate in Chepstow on May 15.

It aims to celebrate nature, culture, landscape and life along the river in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

In the run-up to the festival countryside professionals are visiting 11 schools, including Thornwell Primary in Chepstow, to work with children aged four to 17 on an environmental research project which culminates in the creation of fabulous flags for the festival itself.

The Wye Valley River Festival’s schools outreach project began last month and has seen children water testing and inputting the results on the Trust’s website. They are also looking at water samples under microscopes and partaking in the Open Air Laboratories survey.

Artists Becky Prior and Faye Joines are also getting students involved in making flags for the river festival, showing them how to create large double-sided flags that reference river life around the Wye Valley. The flags are made using a printing process called Cyanotype (also called a blue/sun print).

In the Lower Wye Valley they are working with primary schools in Thornwell (Chepstow), Llandogo, Trellech, Redbrook and St Briavels, as well as Brockweir Youth Club.

Visit www.wyevalleyaonb.org.uk