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Mapping your site
In this activity you will map the habitats on your learning site, such as grass, trees, ponds, flowerbeds and playgrounds.
The map you create will enable you to measure and track the gains you achieve for nature as you progress through the Nature Park programme, and means that you and your learners will be collaborating with the Natural History Museum on groundbreaking research into nature recovery.
Whether your site is buzzing with life or a little greyer than you would like, understanding your starting point is an important first step in your Nature Park journey.
There are eight activities to choose from, each focusing on a different habitat type. You'll draw your habitats onto the Nature Park map using the Habitat Mapper tool on a mobile device.
Open Habitat Mapper tool
1. Install the app and plan your sessions
Before running these activities with your group, you'll need to install an app on to one mobile device in order to access the Habitat Mapper tool. Guidance on how to do this, alongside planning tools to help you decide which habitats to map, are covered on the Prepare for mapping your site page, so head there first.
2. Map habitats with your learners
There are eight activities to choose from, each focusing on a different habitat type (see below).
Not all habitats may be present on your site, so you can pick and choose. You can spread these activities out throughout the year if you wish, or plan a focused day or week of habitat mapping activities.
For each habitat type, a set of activities develop learners’ understanding of key concepts, then a flowchart enables learners to identify that habitat. The educator draws the patch of habitat onto the Nature Park map using the Habitat Mapper tool on a mobile device.
- It's best to map playgrounds, pathways, carparks etc first (Ground without plants), and areas of grass and playing field (Grass and wildflowers) as these are likely to cover the largest areas of your site.
- Then move on to mapping trees, hedges and bushes, flowers and food, and water habitats.
- Finally, add in fences and walls (vertical features), and small features like bird boxes, bee hotels and log piles (microhabitats).
Working in this order will help you to build up your map over time.
Open Habitat Mapper tool
To access the tool, you must be logged into the Nature Park website and click through to the Habitat Mapper from here. If asked to log in again, don't type in any log in credentials, just click the big blue button. Check the troubleshooting advice if you need help.
3. Finalise your baseline map
The last step is to check and complete your habitat map, once you've worked through all the habitats on your site.
By this point, you will have created a baseline understanding of what your site offers for nature and for yourselves. This forms the starting point for your Nature Park journey towards enhancing your site for nature. You will also have contributed exciting new data to a national nature recovery research project with the Natural History Museum, so thank you for being amazing research collaborators!
Check and mark your baseline habitat map as complete
Eight habitats to choose from:
Mapping ground without plants
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Mapping grass and wildflower habitats
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Mapping tree habitats
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Mapping hedges and bushes
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Mapping flowers and food
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Mapping water habitats
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Mapping vertical feature habitats
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Mapping microhabitats
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Enhancing your site for nature
Your baseline habitat map represents your starting point. Use this process of learning about the habitats on site to understand and reflect on your site as a resource for nature as well as a resource for young people. From there, with your learners you can explore and decide what kinds of improvements you'd like to make - perhaps turning a grey area to greenery, letting some grass grow long, planting flowering grassland plants or installing a pond or rain garden. Or perhaps you have other ideas?
If you make a change to your site, add it to the Nature Park map using the Mapping Change tool (not the Habitat Mapper tool).
Mapping changes to your site
Once your baseline map is complete, you can further study nature using surveys like the Pollinator Count.
Curriculum links
This is a community science activity that contributes directly to real scientific research for the Nature Park. Taking park in the activity can aid development of working scientifically, geography fieldwork and citizenship skills alongside consolidating science curriculum knowledge and enhancing nature education.