UK Nature and Environment

Thousands of young people across England taking part in the National Education Nature Park programme are supporting global biodiversity research by mapping out the habitats on their school sites.

The National Education Nature Park, commissioned by the Department for Education and led by the Natural History Museum working with the Royal Horticultural Society and additional partners, sees young people creating a network of nature-rich spaces on school sites across the country by turning them from ‘grey to green’ through creating new habitats such as ponds, green walls and grasslands.

The programme has recently reached the milestone of more than 1,000 schools creating a map of the habitats on their site, recording an area of over 11 million square metres, equating to around 8,800 Olympic-size swimming pools. From recording trees and hedges, grassy areas, or even bare ground, mapping existing habitats is the exciting first step in young people understanding what their education site offers for nature, and choosing how to make meaningful improvements. Using curriculum-linked resources from the programme and digital tools developed with Esri UK, these habitat maps allow schools to track their progress over time as well as contributing to cutting-edge scientific research.