My Local Area Resources
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This activity is all about exploring your local area to find the best spots to see the wildlife living around you and planning a walk that takes you past all the best spots. Even in the most built up areas there are still spots of green with all sorts of creatures living there, so let’s get planning our local area trail!
In this activity you and your students will:
Use maps and short trips to investigate local nature spots.
Plan a walk and draw your own map.
Write a walking guide including DOWNLOAD ACTIVITYthe things that might be seen along the way.
Optional: Add to youDOWNLOAD ACTIVITYr local area map
Objectives
To explore your local nature areas, spot and identify wildlife, while getting out to enjoy a walk.
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If you could change your local environment for the better, what would you do? Build solar farms? Add cycle paths? Create more green spaces? This activity gives students the chance to use their imagination and re-plan their local area to make it better for all the people, creatures and plants that live there.
Once the students have designed their ideal environment they will be encouraged to find one aspect they could help implement in real life
In this activity you and your students will:
Research their local area.
Plan and draw out sustainable improvements.
Try to put one element of their plan into action.
Optional: Add to your local area map
Objectives
To increase the students’ awareness of improvements that could be made to their local environment and to seek ways to implement them.
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This activity will encourage students to investigate their local area further by asking local older people who have lived in the area for some time about how the local environment has changed over the years.
In this activity you and your students will:
Write a questionnaire.
Write to, call or visit local older people.
Produce a ‘local area over time’ map.
Objectives
To develop contacts and build relationships with local older people and to discover what your local area used to be like and how it has changed through a person’s lifetime.
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This activity will encourage your students to identify local places where additional plants and trees can be grown, carry out a planting activity and monitor development over time on a map overlay.
For the first time we are launching an exciting competition where 12 groups can win £250.00 each to put towards purchasing plants and gardening equipment!
In this activity you and your students will:
Carry out a survey of your local biodiversity.
Plan a planting activity to support local wildlife and contribute to the 1 Trillion Trees project: www.1t.org.
Add an overlay to your local area map.
Enter a competition.
Objectives
To add more greenery and trees to your local area that will improve your environment and encourage local wildlife.
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Litter can be found everywhere. It is a danger to wildlife, as well as being unsightly. In this activity you and your students will pick a suitable local area (this might be a beach if you are by the sea, a park or recreation area, or even the centre of town), carry out a combined litter pick and survey and use the results to create some literally rubbish charts!
In this activity you and your students will:
Learn about the amount of waste people in the UK throw away every year.
Pick a local area that could do with a clean up.
Carry out a combined litter pick and survey (where you collect the litter and make a list of how many pieces you have collected from each of a list of litter types and where you found them).
Display the results of the litter survey by making some charts using the litter you have collected (cleaned where necessary). For example, a pie chart with examples of rubbish found stuck to the chart, or a map of the area you cleaned with examples of the rubbish found stuck on the map where you found it.
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The natural environment is used in lots of different ways: some people use it just for leisure and fun, like a trip to a beach or a forest; and other people use it as a resource, like farmers, foresters, fishers and many, many more. This means that there are jobs that rely on the natural environment everywhere you look – you can even find urban farmers in the middle of our biggest cities. This activity will encourage students to learn about the industries that rely on their local environment, wherever they are.
This activity will help your students realise how important the natural environment is, not just as something to visit or play in, but also as a provider of jobs, resources and livelihood. Students will be encouraged to think as broadly as possible about the range of different jobs that rely on their local environment, beyond more obvious primary users such as a farmer.
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This educational activity is designed to help students discover and appreciate both common and lesser-known wildlife in their local surroundings, while understanding the feeding relationships among these creatures.
The students will embark on a mini exploration of their local area, recording any animals they encounter. This can be as simple as a brief scouring of the school grounds or it could be expanded into a half-day trip to a beach, forest, or park. Urban environments are equally suitable for this activity, often housing a surprising level of biodiversity if one looks carefully enough. If the Local Environment Mapping Activity has been completed, students can conduct their animal exploration in the same area to add an additional layer of information to their map.
This activity will encourage students to pay close attention to their environment and develop an appreciation for the wildlife that coexists with them, often unnoticed. Many creatures camouflage themselves in our everyday surroundings, becoming visible only when we take the time to seek them out.
Finally, students will construct a food web or food chain using the animals they've found in their local area. This visual representation will illustrate how each animal relies on others for survival, emphasising the importance of every creature in maintaining a balanced ecosystem.
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This activity will help students gain a deeper understanding of the geography, geology, flora and fauna of their local area, working collaboratively.
Students will create a layered set of maps of a defined area. They’ll investigate not only the physical layout of the area, but also what makes up the surface features, and how plants and animals have taken advantage of these features and the resources they provide.
By doing so, the students will better understand the complexity of ecosystems, how they may depend on their physical environment, and how changes to that environment may affect the ecosystem.
