Mapping changes to your site
Measure your progress towards boosting biodiversity, compare against your starting point and be a part of real nature recovery research by marking any changes you make to your site on the map.
Researchers at the Natural History Museum will incorporate your changes into a national study to better understand how we can restore and enhance nature together.
The Mapping Change tool works in a similar way to the Habitat Mapper and Map Editor tools. You can draw new areas of habitat onto your original habitat map to reflect changes you have made to boost biodiversity. Add before and after photos, upload files, record the date the change was made and who was involved to create a long-term record of your achievements.
The Mapping Change tool is most easily used on a desktop computer.
Check out our instructions and video below on how to use the tool.
Recording change
Preparation
First, ensure your school, nursery or college site boundary has been added to the Nature Park map. See Create your site boundary.
Add changes to your site as soon as you make them, using the Mapping Change tool, but visualising the impact of these changes is better if you have already mapped the habitats you have on your site. Take a look at the lesson plans and resources in Mapping your site for ideas and support on how to do this.
Before starting, you might like to remind yourself of the habitat categories if you are unsure which category your change fits into.
How to use the Mapping Change tool
The Mapping Change tool is best accessed using a desktop or laptop computer. It is divided into three pages which can be accessed from the tabs/buttons at the top. Watch the video tutorial to learn how to use the tool.
Map a change tab
An educator should use the Mapping Change tool to draw the shape of the new habitat onto your Nature Park map (as an area, line or point), as accurately as you are able to. Ensure learners see you do this and understand their observations are being submitted to a national map. You can upload up to three files per change that you map, such as before and after photographs or a planting list. Please keep these under 10MB per file.
We’d love you to map any changes you made to boost biodiversity, but also we understand other changes may have happened on your site that were not done with a goal of boosting biodiversity, such as adding a shed, new playground or carpark. Please map these changes too. To do this, turn on the ‘Other site changes’ layer and add ‘Other changes’ on your Nature Park map (as an area, line or point).
Explore tab
Learners can use the Explore tab in the Mapping Change tool to view the map and visualise the changes to your site. On this tab you can turn the original habitat map layer and new changes layers off and on. You can also view how your map has changed over time using the ‘swipe’ and ‘timeline’ functions, and you can print the maps.
Young people can extend their mapping skills by using a function called ‘draw’ to add drawings and labels to the map (but this will not be saved or shared with the Nature Park database).
Survey tab
Wildlife surveys such as the Pollinator Count can be accessed from this tab, and filtered by season, Key Stage and habitat to find the ones most suitable for your site. More will be added as the Nature Park programme develops.
Having trouble with the digital tools? Our troubleshooting page may help.