Students from Honley High School will be investigating the effects of climate change at Wessenden Reservoir.

The pupils will be on site on March 18 as part of study into the impact of climate change in the Peak District.

The seventh annual Moorland Indicators of Climate Change Initiative (MICCI), organised by the Peak District National Park Authority, takes place as part of National Science and Engineering Week.

The 11 to 18-year-olds from eight schools, mainly in urban areas surrounding the national park, will be conducting practical experiments to investigate man’s impact on sensitive moorland.

Co-ordinator Chris Robinson, of the Peak District National Park Authority’s Learning and Discovery Team, said: “Healthy peat moorlands could retain more carbon than all the forests in the UK and France combined. But centuries of human activities have damaged the peat through pollution, wildfires and drainage which led to severe loss of vegetation and erosion.

“The students’ research will help the Moors for the Future Partnership, which is now carrying out large-scale restoration of the upper moorlands through re-wetting the peat and regenerating vegetation such as cotton-grass and cloudberry.”

The MICCI project started in the Peak District in 2007 and has now expanded to national parks across the UK, including the Cairngorms, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast, Northumberland, North York Moors, and Exmoor.