Make Space for BEES
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Plymouth
Department Name: Sch of Art, Design & Architecture
Abstract
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.
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.
| Description | The Make Space for BEES project developed design-led solutions to address specific challenges facing biodiversity through developing a rewilding tool to be used by younger people to support pollinator habitats. This project addresses the challenge of how to enable young people to take action to address biodiversity challenges. It empowered them to act and see tangible changes in their local environment - their school grounds. The project worked collaboratively in a place-based approach with the innovative organization Pollenize and younger people through five secondary schools in Cornwall, UK to co-create innovative design solutions that enable the project to have meaningful impact on the green transition. Biodiversity Engagement in Schools: The research was undertaken in Cornwall, UK. School grounds are a key space where young people engage regular with nature. The Children's People and Nature Survey for England 2020 showed that 85% of children spend time outdoors every day while at school, but only 50% of the time outside of term time. This shows that schools represent a valuable space to engage young people with taking action for biodiversity and local habitats for pollinators such as bees. Further, children in more deprived neighbourhoods typically spend less time in green and blue spaces. Therefore, we engaged with young people from schools located in areas of deprivation to give them tools and agency to take action in a local green space which they engage with daily. These schools are in the bottom 20% of most deprived areas in UK. The project has also co-designed a biodiversity engagement toolkit working with the schools which will allow the students to audit and track biodiversity changes within their school grounds in real time. Using open access citizen science platforms - iNaturalist has played a crucial role in this process, offering an accessible and interactive way for students and teachers to engage with and contribute to real-world biodiversity data collection. This has facilitated both learning and participation, helping young people develop a sense of responsibility towards their environment. This research has strengthened our partner: Pollenize CIC's research capacity, expanding its engagement with schools and informing the development of digital rewilding tools. We're informing leading international citizen science app: iNaturalist's approach to school-based biodiversity monitoring by sharing insights on how to effectively engage schools for increasing young people's participation in citizen science, ensuring that biodiversity data collection in schools is both accessible and impactful. The project is contributing to national initiatives by informing the work of the National Education Nature Park (NENP) around biodiversity engagement in schools. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes of the research are being taken forward through a number of ways: 1) Knowledge exchange with the Natural Education Nature Park project (https://www.educationnaturepark.org.uk/) including Natural History Museum, Royal Horticultural Society, iNaturalist and Learning Through Landascapes. We are sharing the findings of our research with this larger, national project. 2) The seven schools we worked with are continuing to develop their biodiversity engagement activities and have a planted patch which is inrceasing the biodoervsity on the school site. 3) Pollenize CIC have secured further funding through Innovate UK to develop a follow on project that will be piloted at the Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park in London 4) We are developing a Make space for bees toolkit that can be delivered to schools to undertake the project for themselves. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Environment |
| URL | https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/make-space-for-bees |
| Description | IMPACT ON SCHOOLS The project has successfully engaged 7 secondary schools across Cornwall, UK. These schools have now planted biodiversity friendly green patches on their grounds to support pollinator habitats as an outcome of the project. Additionally, we've engaged 50+ students and 7 teachers across these schools in hands-on workshops (activities such as Bioblitz using naturalist for nature discovery & biodiversity audit) over 6 sessions and approximately 9 engagement hours to co-design solutions for developing a rewilding and biodiversity engagement toolkit. We performed a gap analysis of plant species data collected by the students during the BioBlitz activity using Floradex - a tool developed by Pollenize in collaboration with University of Plymouth. As a result, we were able to create custom seed prescriptions for each school to prescribe tailored planting strategies for subsequent planting of biodiversity patches to better support pollinator habitats in each school. These patches have thus, not only provided tangible ecological benefits but are also continually serving as a learning tool for students to engage with biodiversity in their schools using the biodiversity engagement toolkit developed by the project. The project has also co-designed a biodiversity engagement toolkit working with the schools which will allow the students to audit and track biodiversity changes within their school grounds in real time. Using open access citizen science platforms - iNaturalist has played a crucial role in this process, offering an accessible and interactive way for students and teachers to engage with and contribute to real-world biodiversity data collection. This has facilitated both learning and participation, helping young people develop a sense of responsibility towards their environment. The workshops and hands-on activities developed as a part of the engagement model that we've co-created with schools also ensures that we provide opportunities to embed biodiversity engagement for nature-based learning in students' everyday activities in schools to educate them about key issues around biodiversity loss, and the role of green spaces in urban environments and create pathways to action- aligning with National Initiatives such as the work of the National Education Nature Park. IMPACT ON BIODIVERSITY By integrating data-driven rewilding, the project has supported pollinator habitats while enhancing plant species diversity in school grounds. The use of iNaturalist has facilitated real-time biodiversity monitoring, allowing students to contribute to broader conservation efforts. Beyond school-level impact, the project's approach aligns with National and Regional Initiatives to tackle biodiversity loss and serves as a model for scalable, biodiversity-positive interventions in educational estates and more widely in local greenspaces. IMPACT ON POLLENIZE CIC (NON-ACADEMIC PARTNER MAKE SPACE FOR BEES) This research has strengthened Pollenize's research capacity, expanding its engagement with schools and informing the development of digital rewilding tools. The collaboration provided insight into the challenges and opportunities of working with schools, exposing Pollenize to a new potential customer segment. The Design Researcher in Residence model has enabled knowledge exchange and new collaborations, including with Learning through Landscapes. Additionally, the project has provided a springboard for securing new funding including a recent Innovate Grant (Design to Deliver - Connected Places -Floradex :Mapping and Improving Urban Biodiversity through Citizen Science, value £47K) to deliver a project at Queen Elizabeth Park in London, supporting the organisation in the development of scalable biodiversity solutions that foster long-term environmental stewardship. The involvement of a familiar academic partner has ensured continuity and momentum, strengthening Pollenize's role in education and community engagement. ACADEMIC IMPACT The project has disseminated findings at key national and international conferences/ forums to amplify impact. Through these engagements, the project has contributed to academic discourse on biodiversity - reinforcing the role of schools and young people in conservation efforts as well as of digital tools and technologies in creating pathways to environmental citizenship for tackling biodiversity loss and supporting nature recovery. These include: • Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Annual Conference 2024 • NERC Digital Gathering 2024 • The World Urban Forum 2024 • Urban Transitions Conference 2024 WIDER IMPACT: National Education Nature Park (NENP): The project is contributing to national initiatives by informing the work of the National Education Nature Park (NENP) around biodiversity engagement in schools. Our project in Cornwall aligns directly with the aims of the National Education Nature Park to engage more children and young people with nature and to increase the biodiversity across the educational estates. By sharing practical insights into the project's scalable methodology (using citizen science, hands-on biodiversity interventions, and supporting engagement materials and resources) for implementing change we will demonstrate how to create effective biodiversity engagement embedded in nature-based learning in schools. iNaturalist: We're informing iNaturalist's approach to school-based biodiversity monitoring by sharing insights on how to effectively engage schools for increasing young people's participation in citizen science, ensuring that biodiversity data collection in schools is both accessible and impactful. South KenZEN+ Programme: We're collaborating with the South KenZEN+ programme, particularly around their Nature Positive Neighbourhoods theme, supporting a broader movement to create biodiversity-rich, low-carbon urban environments. These collaborations reinforce the project's scalability and broader significance. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Title | Make space for bees chatbot |
| Description | This is a chatbot interface and platform that has been designed as a form of guide to schools to undertake a bioblitz activity. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Impact | This product is at MVP stage and will be further developed and tested in 2025,. |
| Description | Blog post |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an interview undertaken with Future Observatory researchers, with Katharine Willis and Ashita Gupta - the academic team leading Make Space for BEES, a Design Exchange Partnership involving the University of Plymouth and Pollenize. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://futureobservatory.org/news/interview-plymouth-schools-biodiversity |
| Description | Make Space for Bees exhibition at Imagination Unleashed event, Cornwall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This was an exhibition stand showcasing the AHRC make space for bees project at the Imagination Unleashed event ar Hall for Cornwall on 10th and 11th feburary 2025. Screen Cornwall organised Imagination Unleashed 2025 as a celebration and exploration of where Tech and Creativity collide to solve problems and enable great entertainment. This will be the third year of the event. Reflecting the vibrant CreaTech ecosystem in the region, the Imagination Unleashed programme will have 3 key elements: The Cornwall Games Challenge for 11+, the Imagination Unleashed industry event at Hall for Cornwall on Monday 10th February and an interactive showcase for school groups at Hall for Cornwall on Tuesday 11th February. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://www.screencornwall.com/imagination-unleashed-about |
| Description | Make space for Bees at Futures 2024: Voyage of Discovery event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an interactive exhibition showcasing the Make space for Bees project as part of the University of Plymouth FUTURES 2024 event at Royal William Yard, Plymouth, UK on 5th october 2024. There were over 2000 people who attended over the weekend event. About the event: FUTURES is a FREE festival of discovery taking place in the South West across venues in Bath, Bristol, Devon, Exeter, Plymouth and online this Autumn. The festival is a unique opportunity to find out more about the innovative and world-class research taking place at universities across the South West With something for every age, FUTURES brings science, culture and research to life in new and exciting ways. There are plenty of events to experience, including late-night museum openings, hands-on activities, exhibitions, storytelling, talks, walks, scavenger hunts and much more! |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://futuresnight.co.uk/events/voyage-of-discovery/ |
| Description | Mounts Bay School workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a half day workshop at Mounts Bay Academy on 20th march 2024. This was delivered as part of the AHRC make space fopr bees project. We engaged with 2 teachers and 20 students. The students undertook a bioblitz, and Pollenize our non academic partner planted a biodiversity patch. https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Description | School workshop at Treviglas Academy, Cornwall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a series of half day workshops at Treviglas Academy, Cornwall on 15th May 2024, 21st Novermber 2024 and 14th February 2025. This was delivered as part of the AHRC make space for bees project. We engaged with 1 teacher and 15 students. The students undertook a bioblitz, and Pollenize our non academic partner planted a biodiversity patch. https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Description | Time2Move holiday activity- Digital Discovery Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was a day activity delivered as part of the Cornwall Council Time2Move holiday programme. It was delivered on 29th July and 5th August 2024. Over the two days there were 18 participants, with 15 young people. This was a Digital Discovery Day, and was open to children who were registered for Free School Meals. The activity was supported (funded) by the Cornwall Council Time 2 Move programme. The digital discovery day was an opprtunity to learn and explore new digital experiences such as Virtual Reality, 3D printing and citizen science! This was a playful and fun day workshop to find out about how to use digital technology to make things, experience new spaces and also to connect with nature. The day was open to all levels and abilities and no prior digital skills or experience is required, and was supported by University of Plymouth academic staff and by staff from Pollenize CIC The activity took place at Newquay Community Orchard, TR7 2SL. Lunch was provided in the café. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/schools-and-education/schools-and-colleges/school-meals/time2move-holida... |
| Description | Workshop at Helston Academy, Cornwall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a half day workshop at Helston Academy on 28th June 2024. This was delivered as part of the AHRC make space fopr bees project. We engaged with 1 teacher and 14 students. The students undertook a Bioblitz, and Pollenize our non academic partner planted a biodiversity patch. https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Description | Workshop at Penrice Academy, Cornwall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a half day workshop at Penrice Academy on 27th June 2024. This was delivered as part of the AHRC make space for bees project. We engaged with 1 teacher and 18 students. The students undertook a bioblitz, and Pollenize our non academic partner planted a biodiversity patch. https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Description | Workshop at Penryn Academy, Cornwall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a half day workshop at Penryn Academy on 20th June 2024. This was delivered as part of the AHRC make space fopr bees project. We engaged with 2 teachers and 20 students. The students undertook a bioblitz, and Pollenize our non academic partner planted a biodiversity patch. https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pollenize.org.uk/make-space-for-bees |