Children & Schools

Helping the Next Generation Become Guardians of Nature

Children are naturally curious about the living world.

An owl calling at night, a butterfly visiting a flower, hedgehog footprints in a garden or the possibility of an otter beside a river can turn an ordinary walk into an adventure.

The Cwmaman Rights of Nature initiative aims to build upon that curiosity by helping children discover, observe and care for the wildlife and habitats around them.

The objective is simple:

To help children understand that they are not separate from nature — they are part of it.

Young Nature Guardians

Children can become Young Nature Guardians by exploring their local environment and learning to notice what lives there.

They do not need specialist knowledge or expensive equipment.

They need curiosity.

A Young Nature Guardian might:

watch birds;
look for animal tracks and signs;
identify butterflies and other insects;
explore woodland;
investigate streams and ponds;
discover wildflowers;
observe seasonal changes;
record wildlife sightings;
learn why habitats are important; and
help care for a familiar place.

The emphasis is upon discovery rather than enforcement.

Young Nature Guardians are not expected to investigate environmental offences or approach people who may be damaging habitats. Those responsibilities belong to adults and the appropriate authorities.

Children can contribute by doing something equally important:

looking carefully at the living world.

Ted's Travels

Exploring Nature with Ted and His Friends

Ted's Travels has been developed as a child-friendly way of introducing wildlife observation, citizen science and Rights of Nature.

Children can explore the landscape through four wildlife characters:

The Owl

The Owl encourages children to look and listen.

What birds can they see?

Can they hear an owl?

Are there trees where birds might nest?

What happens to birds when old trees and hedgerows disappear?

The Otter

The Otter introduces children to rivers and streams.

Is the water clean?

What animals live beside it?

Are there places where an otter might shelter?

Why do rivers need healthy banks and connected habitats?

The Hedgehog

The Hedgehog helps children discover the importance of gardens, hedgerows and wildlife corridors.

Can a hedgehog move safely between gardens?

Where might it find food?

Are there leaves, logs and other places where small animals can shelter?

The Butterfly

The Butterfly introduces wildflowers, pollination and grassland.

Which flowers attract butterflies?

How many different butterflies can children find?

Why do meadows matter?

What happens when all the flowers disappear?

Together, Ted and his wildlife friends encourage children to see the landscape through the eyes of the creatures that live there.

Citizen Science for Children

Citizen science allows ordinary people to contribute to our understanding of nature.

Children can take part too.

A wildlife observation becomes more meaningful when a child records:

What did I see?

Where did I see it?

When did I see it?

What was the habitat like?

Can I photograph or describe it?

Over time, many small observations can create a much larger picture of the wildlife living within a community.

Citizen science therefore teaches something important:

Every observation can matter.

Epicollect5

Turning Discoveries into Records

Epicollect5 provides a digital way of recording observations made during Ted's Travels and other Young Nature Guardian activities.

With appropriate adult or school supervision, observations can be entered using a smartphone or tablet.

A record might include:

the animal or plant observed;
where it was found;
the type of habitat;
the date;
a photograph;
simple information about what the child noticed; and
observations about whether the habitat appears healthy.

This transforms a nature walk into a simple citizen-science activity.

Children are not merely looking at wildlife.

They are beginning to document the living landscape around them.

EcoWatch Monitor

Where appropriate, EcoWatch Monitor can complement Epicollect5 by helping adults responsible for the project monitor new observations and reports.

The children make discoveries.

Epicollect5 records them.

EcoWatch Monitor helps adults keep watch over incoming records.

Technology therefore supports the activity without replacing its most important element:

children going outside and experiencing nature for themselves.

Learning Through Place

Rights of Nature can sometimes sound like a complicated legal or philosophical idea.

For children it can begin with something much simpler:

This river matters.

This tree matters.

This butterfly matters.

This hedgehog needs somewhere to live.

Once children begin to understand the needs of another species, they are already beginning to think beyond a purely human view of the world.

A useful question for a child might therefore be:

"If you were an otter, an owl, a hedgehog or a butterfly, what would you need from this place?"

That simple exercise introduces some of the fundamental ideas behind Rights of Nature.

Taking Learning Outdoors

Schools can use local habitats as outdoor classrooms.

A stream can become a place to learn about water and aquatic ecology.

A meadow can introduce plants, insects and pollination.

A woodland can provide opportunities to study trees, fungi, birds and decomposition.

A hedgerow can demonstrate food chains and ecological connectivity.

The school grounds themselves can become valuable places for investigation.

Children might map trees, count butterflies, record birds, construct wildlife habitats or observe how the same place changes through the seasons.

This makes environmental education local, practical and memorable.

From Observation to Care

Citizen science is valuable, but the purpose is greater than collecting data.

The aim is to develop a relationship with place.

A child who regularly visits the same stream begins to know it.

A child who watches butterflies throughout the summer begins to notice when they disappear.

A child who discovers that hedgehogs need connected gardens begins to understand why habitat fragmentation matters.

Knowledge can lead to attachment.

Attachment can lead to care.

And care can develop into guardianship.

Schools and the Rights of Nature

Schools can use Rights of Nature to explore questions crossing many areas of the curriculum:

Science — habitats, biodiversity, ecology and species.

Geography — landscapes, rivers, land use and environmental change.

Digital learning — collecting and mapping citizen-science observations.

History and culture — changing relationships between communities and their landscapes.

Ethics and citizenship — responsibilities towards other species and future generations.

Creative work — writing, drawing, photography and storytelling inspired by nature.

Rights of Nature therefore provides more than an environmental topic.

It provides a way of asking children:

What sort of relationship should we have with the living world around us?

A Generation of Nature Guardians

The future of nature will ultimately depend upon people who know it, value it and are prepared to care for it.

That relationship can begin very young.

It may begin with seeing a butterfly.

Hearing an owl.

Finding a hedgehog footprint.

Watching a river.

Or simply discovering that a familiar patch of ground contains far more life than we had ever imagined.