One of the key goals of the Peatland Progress project is to bring people, and especially young people, closer to nature to reap its benefits for health and wellbeing. With the project officially launched in June, we have been delighted to begin building important connections with some of the local community groups and schools who can help us do just that.

St John Fisher Catholic High School

Before the end of the summer term, we were invited to attend the St John Fisher School’s ‘focus day’ covering environmental issues. This gave us a great opportunity to talk about our existing work on the Great Fen, our new project Peatland Progress and some of the ‘losers and winners’ of climate change. Although based quite closely in Peterborough, we found that many of the students hadn’t heard of our organisation or visited any of our sites. So, in addition to talking about the Great Fen's transformation and its relevance to climate change, we also discussed the importance of being outside and how nature can help support positive wellbeing.

During the session, we also set group challenges for the students. They surprised us with their ideas for transforming a piece of land for wildlife, their eco-inventions and ideas for improving the school's eco credentials. 

At the end of the session, we provided a peat loss and salvage demonstration using two plastic bottles. One bottle contained just soil, the other containing soil and sphagnum moss. Pouring a little water into each bottle, we demonstrated how the soil in isolation would drain the water instantly, versus the moss which stored the water and held the soil in place reducing the run-off. In the beginning, our little experiment went a little rogue, but the students laughed along with us and understood the concept of how important sphagnum is for peat restoration…hopefully we have captured the attention of some budding environmentalists out there!

(We didn't record our own, but here's a great example of the experiment from one of our sphagnum moss suppliers, BeadaMoss: Video)  

We also took part in a fun sustainable fashion workshop making wearable items from old newspapers. The young people came up with amazing outfits….one was even King Charles’ Coronation costume! There were other workshops on the day from PECT and the Peterborough City Council’s Climate Change Officer so hopefully the ‘focus day’ has given young people some hope and ambition for how they can help their planet Earth!

High Heritage 

In August, we welcomed back High Heritage for a return visit, a charity that works with young Black people in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. They managed to book the sunshine as we had a gloriously warm day! The group was divided up into primary and secondary school-aged children to provide some different activities to suit. The youngsters went out to explore the reserve and do some amazing den building. The older group spent the morning filming on the reserve and their afternoon creating short films using the Clipchamp application. The group seemed to thoroughly enjoy their day, with some of the adults also getting very stuck in to building dens! We all came together to play a fun wildlife game at the end which involved lots of running and giggling! We hope High Heritage will continue to be part of the Peatland Progress journey and that the young people will be able to engage with some of our other opportunities as the project progresses.

Caring Together

Caring Together also visited us during the holidays bringing a group of young carers for some much-needed R & R. The group enjoyed making some nature crafts, including butterfly feeders for their gardens, and playing in the den building area. One of the young people discovered a heritage brick, made here at Ramsey Heights in Victorian times, buried at the base of one of the trees, she dedicated most of the morning to excavating her find! The afternoon was spent on a nature walk and making some colourful nature bunting to take home. It was such a pleasure to host this group and we hope they had a restful day where they could unwind. One young person said, ‘I like nature, it makes me feel calm’, which we know is scientifically proven, but nothing beats seeing it happen for these young people in real life!

Centre 33

Our final group visit for the summer was with Centre 33, another charity working with young carers. Adam Fraser, a Young Carers Project Worker, has written this lovely piece about their day.

All in all, we’ve had a great summer connecting with our local community. We've promoted health and wellbeing in nature as well as spreading the word about the work we are doing on the Great Fen to combat climate change and make a positive difference to our world. We hope all the young people we've met can find time for nature and feel empowered to play a role in nature's recovery. 

If your community group or school would like to work with us, please get in touch. We can host groups here at the Countryside Centre, or come to you. We look forward to hearing from you.