In a city as sprawling and urbanized as London, it's easy to feel isolated from nature. However, if you just look a bit closely, London is actually teeming with wildlife in its parks, green spaces, and even in your back garden!
Operating for several years now, the aim of the Urban Wildlife project is to help our London community, especially children, connect more with the nature around us. Working with primary schools from Wembley to Deptford, we do immersive, hands-on activities with students in green spaces near their schools that allow them to learn about everything from pollination to adaptations to food webs. Our activities give students the opportunity to interact with the wildlife directly near where they live and learn, hopefully giving them a deeper appreciation for the natural world and why we need to protect it. We also prioritize working with students from diverse, multicultural backgrounds to combat systemic inequity in nature access and to reinforce to students that London’s green spaces are for everyone. In addition to school visits, we run a stall every year at the Great Exhibition Road Festival (as well as recently at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø Sustainability Month), featuring stations with seed bomb making, microscopes with soil specimens, and facts about London’s wildlife. Through our various outreach activities in the community, we hope to instil a greater feeling of oneness between Londoners and the environment they live in, and hopefully inspire the next generation to share the passion for environmental protection those of us in the Grantham Institute have.
Team Members
Jessica Hunter
Lucy Somekh
Olivia Atkins
Oscar O'Flanagan
Phoebe Lei
Saoirse Coveney
Shyam Sharma
Sourish Kalaga