Make Space for BEES

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In order to deliver the green transition we need to empower people to take action to care for their natural environment. One of the ways in which people can most actively contribute is through supporting pollinator habitats to create flourishing biodiversity ecosystems. Digital tools such as citizen science has the potential to deepen connections between people and nature and to increase local participation in caring for and managing local greenspaces.The project aims to develop design-led solutions to address specific challenges facing biodiversity through developing a rewilding tool to be used by younger people to support pollinator habitats. It will address the challenge of how to enable young people to take action to address biodiversity challenges and empower them to take action and see tangible changes in their local environment; their secondary school grounds. The project will collaborate with the award winning non-academic organization Pollenize CIC who have been developing new ways to track and improve biodiversity that enables insects to recover. As a result, the social enterprise has gained huge momentum, leading them to become a key player in driving environmental research and social change within the city and beyond. We will build on the existing track record of both organisations (Pollenize and University of Plymouth) of developing innovative design solutions using digital tools for young people to positively contribute to nature recovery within the places in which they study and live. The project will work in Cornwall in a place based approach in six schools located in communities that are characterised as deprived.Our project also has an embedded approach to build capacity in the project partners through programmes of training, mentoring and collaborative knowledge exchange. The Research Associate will work in a 'Design Researcher in Residence' (DIR) approach, spending time co-hosted with both Pollenize and the schools identified for the project co-design and implementation.The impact we plan to achieve will be created through creating pathways to environmental citizenship by giving young people tools to proactively support and protect pollinating insects. In doing so it will actively contribute to increasing the abundance and diversity of pollinating insects in school grounds which will measure and evaluate over the course of the project. The wider impact of the project will be the alignment of the outcomes with the work of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust who have the collective target of enabling 1 in 4 people taking action for wildlife and nationally with the National Education Nature Park project led by Learning Through Landscapes which gives young people the opportunity to transform their learning sites for nature and become part of a network of sites that form the National Education Nature Park. The Make Space for Bees project will align with these strategies and create pathways for national impact in transforming young people's relationship with their school grounds and contributing to pollinator recovery to support biodiversity.