Question
We have a pond in our school, the pond is situated in an enclosed enviroment (walled on all four sides) It was considered a nature area in the late 80's, but it is only used for pond dipping now. We would like to clean the pond and introduce some pond life. The children are concerned that the pond already has living things in it and do not want to drain the pond. Therefore we are looking for a way to; check the water
   clean the pond
   test the PH balance
   encourage insects to our pond
Are pond has a radius of 2 foot, there are bushes, plants and grass surrounding the pond but it also has 25 foot walls round it as well. Could we have frogs or does the walls inhibit this?  

Answer
What do you mean by "pond dipping?"  You can clean the pond out and sift through all the debris for any living animals, even insects.  It will take a while but it would be a good way to learn about maybe some of the smaller species of pond life.  You can certainly add tadpoles to the pond.  When they turn into frogs, they will obviously never be able to leave the courtyard (unless air lifted by birds?).  If you read my page on how I cleaned out my 153 gallon pond, it will give you some ideas on how to sift through the pond to clean it.  See http://www.fishpondinfo.com/myfish/clean.htm
I'm not sure what questions you want me to answer so, if you have more, let me know.  Good luck!

Robyn