Nature Discovery Map Scotland
An education toolkit
An education toolkit
A UK Government announcement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow set out a vision of establishing a UK National Education Nature Park initiative. This will encourage nurseries, schools, colleges and universities to think of their collective grounds as one whole ‘Park’ with vast potential to help halt the decline of biodiversity in this country. Young people involved will upload their progress on the Park’s digital mapping services. They will be able to see how the Park is ‘growing’ while increasing their knowledge of species and developing important skills, such as biodiversity mapping, data collection and analysis. This Department for Education film (to 1:24) outlines the UK Government's vision for a National Education Nature Park and we are looking to establish how this initiative could be developed in Scotland.
Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, Nature Park and Climate Leaders Award animation
We are working on a pilot project in autumn and winter 2022/23 and will report back to Scottish Government in spring 2023 with recommendations for how the pilot could be scaled up to become a national resource for all Scottish educational establishments. We are calling this project Nature Discovery Map Scotland.
A number of primary, secondary and ASN teachers are currently working with us on a pilot project to co-design, build and test this exciting new school digital mapping resource. This will help to explore and record biodiversity in and around education settings.
It is hoped that if successful, this resource will be scaled up to become a national resource for all schools. Use of this tool will support digital literacy in pupils, outdoor learning and Learning for Sustainability (LfS).
The toolkit will be hosted on a webpage and will consist of:
The toolkit will allow learners to:
And support the development of:
Phase |
When |
---|---|
Workshops using co-design principles (2 twilight sessions) |
October & November 2022 |
Build the pilot mapping toolkit |
November 2022 - January 2023 |
Schools test the pilot toolkit |
February - March 2023 |
Schools evaluate the pilot test kit |
March 2023 |
Teacher Usability Study Technical Feasibility Study (to inform the national roll-out) |
March 2023 |
Report to Scottish Government |
April 2023 |
Contact Sue Munro by email, or by phone (Mon-Wed) 0131-314 6783