Starting an urban nature movement: What we learned from working in partnership across the UK

When we embarked on the Urban Nature Project, one of our main goals was to connect as many people as possible with the nature on their doorsteps.?

We had good reasons to cast our net wide and partner with a range of groups and organisations. We wanted to create a movement of people to collectively respond to the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. We also wanted to address the unequal access to green spaces experienced by people across the UK.?

To meet this ambition, we initiated a range of partnerships. “We have collaborated with more than 22 local community partners, 12 national museums and nearly 800 urban nature network members,” says Lauren Hyams, our Head of Learning and National Programmes.?

“We have also reached over 14,000 students in 275 schools and 800 neighbourhoods,” she adds.??

After all this effort, we can finally take a breath, step back and reflect on what we have learned.??

New programmes, new challenges?

Creating partnerships was a brilliant way to overcome some of the challenges we encountered as we looked for new ways to study, learn and explore nature on our doorsteps.?

These challenges ranged from big to small. How easy was it to transport highly flammable alcohol-soaked beetles and flies from Scotland to London? How can we engage people to do a wildlife survey that is scientifically meaningful? What questions do school students have about nature around them and how can we support them to answer them???

By working collaboratively, we were able to learn, share ideas, reach a broader range of people from across the country and be introduced to new ways of working.??

“Our collaborations reflect diverse voices, lived experiences and collective ideas to better understand what we can do to help people and nature thrive in our towns and cities,” says Lauren.??

Working with young people: fostering a connection with nature

We wanted to find ways to break down some of the barriers to connecting with nature, particularly in urban areas where access to green spaces can be more challenging.??

Three main groups began to stand out: teens and young adults, those from marginalised communities and time-poor parents. Focusing on these groups, we started to look at ways to help give people easy ways to access nature, feel its benefits and become more motivated to protect it in the future.??

We worked with The King’s Trust and Voyage Youth to train youth leaders to support taking young people outdoors. We delivered youth worker training workshops across four sites; the Natural History Museum in London, Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust, Great North Museum: Hancock and RSPB Glasgow. To support the sessions, we also developed a toolkit for youth workers giving lots of activity ideas and tips, which is available on our website.?

Harriet Fink, the Urban Nature Project Learning and Volunteering Programme Manager says, “This training was so successful, as soon as we trained leaders, we would see them the next day teaching young people in the park!”?

As for the participants, “They’ve really developed a sense of community among them and stay in touch with each other”, she adds.?

Over the course of the project, we also ran three Youth Advisory Panels, bringing together young people from across the country to tackle questions about access to nature head on.??

The first group came together in lockdown to discuss solutions to the unequal access to nature felt by many young people, in particular those from marginalised ethnic communities.??

“This group of young people came together for five months at the height of lockdown. It gave so much more meaning to the discussions about the importance of spending time in nature and the positive health benefits it brings.” Says Harriet.???

The second group was a panel of seven young people from around the UK who made TikTok content about nature in their cities and towns, whilst the third took part in workshops to co-create poems for the new gardens audio guide.??

To support time-poor parents in getting their kids to enjoy time outdoors, we developed Outdoor Activities for Kids. An easy-to-use digital guide with a whole range of ideas for free activities, developed using interviews with busy parents and informal education experts.?

“This national programme of activity has inspired people, particularly young people with the greatest disconnect from nature, to fall in love with nature and learn how to protect it,” says Lauren.?

Working with communities

Nature Overhead: Tune in to Your Streets is a national programme motivating people to collect information about nature on their street. Created in collaboration with school students, it aims to understand the impact that streets and roads have on nature.?

We needed to inspire people to take to their streets to record, look and listen to nature. In addition to working with community groups in London and using digital content to engage people, we also partnered with Groundwork, an organisation who had an established network of engaged communities around the UK.??

“Working in a partnership has been transformational for us, even beyond the Urban Nature Project. It’s changed how we will develop future funding proposals and it’s also been a useful model for us to think about how we can deliver projects at scale across the country,” says Dr Jessica Wardlaw, our Citizen Science Programme Developer.?

Working with educators

Our Explore: Urban Nature programme, delivered in partnership with the Garfield Weston Foundation, aims to connect young people with their local green spaces, supporting them to investigate urban nature and providing them with agency to make positive change. So far, we have engaged 793 teachers, 229 schools, held 611 workshops and activated 13,884 young people to use science to explore urban nature.??

Explore: Urban Nature has been delivered through the Real Word Science network of 13 museums and nature partners across the UK. The programme is a blended learning model of museum workshops, teacher CPD (continuing professional development) and online resources that support school activities.??

“The Real World Science network was amazing to work with because it means our work expands the reach to a much wider audience and enables this project to extend far beyond South Kensington and London,” says Fareeda Atwan, our National Programmes Manager.?

“With this collaborative approach each museum and partner developed their own set of workshops and programmes that worked in their context,” says Fareeda.?

“We have monthly catch ups, which means we work collaboratively and share resources and ideas,” she adds.?

A key part of this programme is working with students and teachers that have identified as having the greatest disconnect from nature.?

Over 95% of teachers who attended training agreed or strongly agreed that because of attending a CPD they now feel more confident in putting curriculum science into an engaging context of urban nature and the environment.??

Some schools used the programme to build on work they were already doing, for others it was just the beginning of a journey of feeling more comfortable being around nature.??

One teacher said, “we have started our journey focussing on urban nature to be relevant to our children who are in an inner-city area where there is lots of fly tipping… we are linking our eco warriors with our science ambassadors to develop our recycled urban garden created using an old bath dumped outside the school.”?

For our museum partners, they said that a national programme has been an opportunity to deliver against strategic priorities for their organisation.?

“Explore: Urban Nature has placed a focus on environmental learning that did not previously exist in our organisation, and we are committed to growing and improving our offer as a result,” shared by one of our partner organisations from the Real World Science network.?

“The engaging learning experiences led by their local museums have resulted in young people strengthening their connection to the places they live, building their skills understanding environmental science, participating in scientific enquiry and taking action for their local environment,” adds Lauren.??

Working with scientists?

A key part of the project was to provide a toolkit to empower people and organisations to make positive changes for nature in their local area. To do this, we needed to know that the scientific methods we were developing at the Museum in London would work across the country, so we teamed up with gardening groups, researchers, NGOs and other museums around the country to sample insect and soil life.??

Our scientists travelled from Glasgow to Cardiff, digging tiny holes in allotments, gardens and museum lawns to collect samples to study.??

Using eDNA techniques, we uncovered a huge range of microbes and insect life in these samples and could compare our results across the country.??

We also created an Urban Nature Network to act as a place for communities to come together, share knowledge and support each other.?

Continuing the urban nature movement?

The relationships, partnerships and networks across the country will keep sharing and learning together. Following the success of the Urban Nature Project, the programme will now reach out globally to create a movement of people who are empowered to make positive changes to help urban nature recovery.??

We thank the wide variety of trusts, foundations, companies and individuals who have generously supported the Urban Nature Project including Amazon Web Services, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Evolution Education Trust, The Cadogan Charity, Garfield Weston Foundation, Kusuma Trust, The Wolfson Foundation, Charles Wilson and Rowena Olegario, Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, Clore Duffield Foundation, Workman LLP and Accenture.?