Meet the Nature Park regional team: London
Welcome to our new series where we meet the regional teams working on the National Education Nature Park!
Our regional officers work in locations across England, helping spread the word about the Nature Park and supporting schools in their region on their Nature Park journey. In this blog we meet Emma Woodhouse and Hollie Andrews, the Senior Programme Officer and Programme Officer for London.
Emma Woodhouse, Senior Programme Officer for London
What excites you about the Nature Park programme?
"I love the fact that the Nature Park programme puts change-making in the hands of young people. It’s amazing to see the creativity, passion and skills of young people up and down the country, exploring, understanding and changing their school site to make it more biodiverse and work together for the planet. I recently spoke to some students who were bursting with pride at the number of different things they’d done in their school!"
What are you looking forward to most with the Nature Park?
"I’m so excited to see the national map grow with as many different schools, colleges and nurseries as possible and to see more and more amazing things happening up and down the country! I'm also looking forward to seeing the impacts that the changes will have across the school, not just on biodiversity, but also on wellbeing."
What is your favourite UK wildlife and why?
"That’s a tough question! I think my favourite would have to be hedgehogs. They are incredibly cute! My fun fact would be that we didn’t have an official name for hedgehog babies (hoglets), until the 1990s! Plant-wise it would have to be a type of tree. One particular type is hard to pick but my favourite tree of all time is the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. I absolutely love the story of Robin Hood, so that was a must-visit for me as a child!"
Hollie Andrews, Programme Officer for London
What excites you about the Nature Park programme?
"What excites me the most about the Nature Park is the programme's ability to have a tangible positive impact on biodiversity through the utilisation of community science and youth empowerment. The programme truly encapsulates the power of gardening to be transformative for people and planet."
What are you looking forward to most with the Nature Park?
"Alongside working with like-minded people, I think I am most looking forward to seeing first-hand how schools that may have very little habitat variation and biodiversity utilise the programme to create a space that becomes important to wildlife and students."
What is your favourite UK wildlife and why?
"This is a tricky question but I think my favourite UK wildlife might be the robin; it's iconic song is not only a signal of spring but very impressive for such a tiny bird, and I love it's boldness in approaching gardeners in the hunt for worms exposed by upturned earth."
The Nature Park London team is supported by the Mayor of London through a community science rewilding grant.
Meet the other Nature Park regional teams
Contact your regional team
To get in contact with your regional team please email us at [email protected]