Explore: Urban Nature aims to inspire, inform and empower teachers and students, aged 9-14, to go outdoors and get involved with the nature on their doorsteps
The Natural History Museum is inviting schools across the UK to join its exciting new education programme, Explore: Urban Nature, part of the Museum’s Urban Nature Project, which will provide the next generation with the skills to engage with and protect urban nature.
Leading a coalition of museums and wildlife organisations, the Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Project will create an urban nature movement through a UK-wide learning programme for young people, families and schools. A key strand of the project, Explore: Urban Nature, delivered in partnership with the Garfield Weston Foundation, will provide school children aged 9-14 with exciting opportunities to dig into what urban nature is, what it does, how it's changing, and what they can do to support it.
Director of the Natural History Museum, Doug Gurr says: “When people talk about nature, they often imagine remote wilderness or rolling countryside but there is a fantastic diversity of life in towns and cities. The Natural History Museum is on a mission to create advocates for the planet, and we know that once young people are inspired to engage with the biodiversity around them, they are far more likely to want to want to protect and enhance it.”
Philippa Charles, Director of the Garfield Weston Foundation, lead partner for Explore: Urban Nature adds: “Our Trustees are committed to the natural world at this critical time and Explore: Urban Nature has the potential to be transformative. We hope it will help thousands of teachers ignite a passion for the nature on their doorsteps and thousands of students across the UK form a lifelong connection with the environment - at a time when it has never been more vital to the future of our planet.”
Over the next three years Explore: Urban Nature will involve museums from around the UK connecting teachers and students with their local environment, allowing them to become local experts and kick-starting a conversation about the importance of urban nature and biodiversity. The programme will include teacher training to help develop practical skills for outdoor STEM investigations into urban nature as well as hands-on outdoor museum workshops where students can investigate challenges facing nature in urban areas.
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Posted On: 15/09/2021