Generation Wild: Inspiring the next generation of nature lovers

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By Mark Stead, Head of Learning

At the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, we have recently launched our Generation Wild project. In many ways, this marks a significant departure from our previous work. Evaluation of our programmes was showing that children were having a great day out with us and we receive great feedback from teachers showing that our sessions effectively cover key areas of the curriculum. However, our programmes weren’t really changing hearts and minds in the way we had hoped. I passionately believe that our role as a conservation organisation is to inspire a love of the natural world and a desire to protect it. So what are we doing differently with Generation Wild?

Previously, we had more of a focus on knowledge acquisition. Now I’m not saying that this isn’t important and that we shouldn’t help children to develop their knowledge and understanding of the natural world. But I do believe that this alone is not enough. If children are to come to truly love the natural world, they need to experience and connect with it directly; see it, hear it, feel it, smell it and ultimately feel part of it. There are still knowledge acquisition elements to the project. However, the main focus is on nature connection, providing activities that foster an emotional connection with the natural world. The nature activities that children complete as part of Generation Wild are based on one or more of the pathways to nature connection identified by Miles Richardson and the Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby; senses, emotion, beauty, meaning and compassion1. We believe this will provide children with a deep, emotional connection to nature.

We carefully considered the target audience. Evidence shows that children from middle and upper class families are much more likely to connect with nature than those from economically disadvantaged communities. We believe that nature is for everyone and want to reach out to a wider audience rather than ‘preaching to the converted’. Therefore, Generation Wild is specifically targeted at schools and families in disadvantaged areas. We worked directly with these communities as we developed the project in order to identify and address the barriers preventing them connecting with nature. We found that many of these families don’t feel they belong in natural spaces. They feel that nature isn’t for them. This is where our wetland centres come in. In many ways, they are the ideal stepping-stone from visitor attraction to nature reserve, providing a fantastic opportunity to take people beyond our collection areas, play parks and visitor centres and into the wilder landscapes of our reserves. We already have a large family audience so those with younger children don’t feel out of place. All of the main visitor areas are accessible with buggies and we have child-friendly hides with guides who can engage with families and talk to them about what they’re seeing.

The other thing we found is that there is a perception that to connect children with nature you need a lot of expensive equipment as well as a high level of knowledge and expertise. As a result, the activities we have developed as part of Generation Wild are incredibly simple, require no equipment and can be carried out in almost any green space. Something as simple as rolling down a slope can help children connect with nature just as effectively (if not more so) as seeing a rare bird through an expensive telescope!

We also wanted to encourage nature connection as a family. We often see children connecting with nature whilst their parents stand by and watch. Through Generation Wild, we encourage parents and other family members to get involved sharing these experiences with their children.

It was clear that in order to have a long-term impact we need to facilitate ongoing nature connection back in the local community. Teachers and parents are crucial in making this happen. As with most conservation organisations, our time with these young people is necessarily time limited. Therefore, Generation Wild is very much a partnership between schools, families and WWT. Schools act as the gateway into the local community, helping us to promote ongoing activity in school grounds and local greenspaces.

In the past, we have focussed mainly on science. For Generation Wild, we wanted to experiment with a partnership between science and the arts in promoting environmental messages. The project is woven around the story of Ava the bird girl, a part-bird, part-human character who’s destiny is to re-unite humans and the rest of the natural world. This narrative approach effectively weaves the different elements of the project together. Children are introduced to Ava in school, they meet her during a visit to the wetland centre and then track her on her journey via a specially designed website back in their classroom and with their families at home.

We also wanted to experiment with the use of technology to enhance nature connection. We wanted technology to enhance the magic without a screen acting as a barrier between the child and the very thing we want to connect them to. As part of the visit to the wetland centre, children use ‘magical’ listening devices called translatorphones to communicate with the animals and find out more about Ava and her story.

We believe this unique approach will inspire children to want to continue their nature-connection journey and will effectively promote action in support of the environment. The project will be evaluated by PhD students from the University of Cardiff, working across the schools of Psychology and Geography and Planning. This will enable us to monitor the impact of the project both in terms of impacts on values and behaviour and on children’s mental health and wellbeing, providing important evidence that we hope will shape policy and practice moving forward. We have already started to weave more nature connection elements into our existing programmes and hope this will become more common across the sector.

Before I sign off, I must acknowledge that we couldn’t have done all of this on our own. In addition to Cardiff University and their work on the evaluation, I need to thank ‘Stand and Stare’ who worked with us to develop the project concept and ‘Fieldwork’ who developed the project website.

Generation Wild is open to schools in economically disadvantaged areas surrounding seven of our wetland centres. 

To find out more, please visit: www.generationwild.org.uk 

If you’d like to get in touch with the author you can email mark.stead@wwt.org.uk

References

1 https://www.derby.ac.uk/research/centres-groups/nature-connectedness-research-group

Updated information October 2023:

During the first two years, over 28,000 children took part. They completed more than 70,000 nature activities in their school grounds, gardens and local nature spaces.

The project has now entered its third year and we are delighted to announce that we have secured additional funding to allow the project to continue until August 2027.

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