How small grants have helped schools and charities bring climate science outdoors, from nature-connection sessions to virtual workshops with Arctic explorers.
Climate change can feel huge and distant to a child: something happening to ice caps a long way from home. A handful of grants have taken a different approach. Get children outside, connect them to a real patch of nature, or put a real explorer in front of them, and the abstract starts to feel personal.
Noticing what's already there
Green Schools Project runs a Zero Carbon Schools programme, bringing outdoor learning into the curriculum at schools across the UK. Cathy Wentworth, the programme's development and communications officer, wanted to bring more of that outdoor time to schools in urban and deprived areas that see less green space than most. A Foundation grant funded eight outdoor sessions built around a "Nature Photographers" exercise, with pupils exploring, noticing and photographing the nature around their own school.
"Through connecting with nature, we can help build a greater understanding and appreciation of the natural world," Wentworth says. "Delivering outdoor learning sessions as part of our Zero Carbon Schools programme gives pupils this opportunity to connect with nature and enjoy and explore the natural spaces around them."
Across the wider programme, 115 schools and more than 4,600 pupils took part, with 95% of teachers reporting that pupils felt more positive about their own role in tackling climate change afterwards. One Year 5 pupil put it more simply: "I understand more about nature and I feel more connected to it."
Keeping the door open
Earth Trust, an environmental learning charity in Oxfordshire, runs outdoor cross-curricular learning for more than 3,500 pupils a year, plus weekly sessions for around 70 young people with special educational needs. When a period of disruption cut the team's capacity, keeping that programme running at all took real effort: half-classes on site, the rest linked in digitally, so no pupil lost access to Earth School altogether.
"The support from Alpkit and others enabled us to deliver a small number of Earth School sessions for mainstream primary schools and 37 sessions for young people aged 13 to 19 with special educational needs," says Kitty Cox of Earth Trust. "The award has helped Earth Trust to maintain our environmental education activity, to run sessions and to keep in touch with schools."
The grant also helped keep the Countryside Skills course going, a hands-on programme developed with Hill End Outdoor Learning and the Pennyhooks Autistic Care Farm Project. Twenty-eight students with special educational needs completed the course, with home-schooling materials keeping others engaged until in-person sessions could resume.
The Arctic in the classroom
For 15 years, Wicked Weather Watch brought Arctic science into UK primary classrooms, reaching more than 31,000 children with lessons on climate change and the confidence to act on it. A Foundation grant supported one of its last workshops before the charity closed. Its work now continues through Better Planet Education, run by director Rhainna Davies-Smith.
"These sessions empower young minds with knowledge about climate change science, intricately linking UK actions with the Arctic," Davies-Smith says. "Real-life experiences, including those of modern-day Arctic explorers, are woven into the curriculum to foster empowerment, reduce eco-anxiety and motivate children to take positive climate action."
The £250 grant reached 340 children across three schools, Years 3 to 6, connecting them with experts from Wicked Weather Watch, Polar Bears International and Hearts in the Ice. The stand-out moment was a live session with Arctic explorer Hilde Fålun Strøm, who described a year spent in an uninsulated wooden cabin with polar bears as her nearest neighbours. Many children left the workshop saying they intended to change their own habits as a result.
None of these grants needed a big budget: a few hundred pounds bought a day outdoors, a term of sessions, or a link to the Arctic. If you run a project connecting young people to the natural world, find out how to apply.