New NERC-funded project empowers young people to engage with environmental science

A new project, The ‘C³ITEES Passport: a unified model for opening up the environment’, will support young people in exploring their local surroundings, understanding environmental challenges and seeing themselves as active contributors to an increasingly ecologically aware future. It will also help strengthen pathways into environmental science by connecting schools, communities, researchers, practitioners and sector organisations through a shared model of progression and participation. Together, the team will create a ‘passport’ model of environmental engagement designed to build confidence, knowledge, skills and opportunity over time.

The successful projects will work collaboratively to broaden participation, showcase diverse skills and career paths, and create lasting impact by helping the environmental research community become more accessible to people who may not traditionally see themselves as part of it. Led by Loughborough University, the project brings together expertise from, amongst others:

• BGS
• Charnwood Forest Geopark
• Environment Agency (East Midlands)
• Nottingham Trent University
• University of Leicester
• University of Nottingham

We are excited to be working in partnership across sectors to inspire the next generation of environmental scientists and explore how we can build more inclusive routes into environmental careers. We will be bringing together schools, teachers, parents, researchers and environmental employers from across the East Midlands to showcase the breadth of environmental careers and the importance of environmental knowledge in responding to real-world challenges.

Dr Keely Mills, BGS project development scientist.

Young people have a vital role to play in understanding and responding to environmental change, but too often the opportunities to engage with environmental science are fragmented or unevenly distributed.

This project is about creating a more coherent, creative and inclusive route into environmental learning, action and aspiration. We want children and young people to feel that environmental science is for them, connected to their lives and relevant to the places they know and care about.

Dr Katie Parsons, Research Fellow at Loughborough University.

The NERC-funded Opening up the environment programme will fund partnerships that deliver practical initiatives to make the UK environmental research and innovation community more diverse, inclusive and representative.

Further details about the C³ITEES Passport project, its partners and opportunities for schools and communities to get involved will be announced in due course.