The 2024 grant enables new spaces to be created that support wildlife habitats, are a hub for the development of green skills and help to tackle local environmental issues. A further round of grant funding will follow next year.
Funding forms part of the National Education Nature Parks programme in partnership with the Natural History Museum and Royal Horticultural Society and funded by the Department for Education to connect young people with nature through a series of mapping and monitoring activities. The Nature Park launched in October 2023 and has to date, 2400 education settings across England signed up.
On Outdoor Classroom Day (Thursday 23 May 2024) the National Education Nature Park programme is calling on teachers and pupils to discover habitats in their school, nursery or college grounds and be ‘habitat heroes’. Teachers and pupils will follow prompts to discover what homes for wildlife they have on their learning site and upload their findings to an online map, building a picture of all the different homes for wildlife in education settings across the country.
From September schools will be able to register to attend free Nature Park taster workshops within the five RHS Gardens to try out some Nature Park activities and gain inspiration to make their school sites greener.