Protect Wildlife and Promote Outdoor Learning with A Nature Rich Playground

The Lancashire Wildlife Trusts are currently working on a project called ‘My Wild City’ where those living in the city work together, over the next 10 years, to reconnect people and wildlife in Manchester.

This helps creates a nature-rich city where everyone enjoys the experience and knowledge and the understanding of wildlife in the city improves: resulting in people noticing and appreciating the natural environment, meaning we can all help protect it!

As we all want to help protect wildlife and promote outdoor play and learning, we have explored 3 playground resources that will help create a nature rich school playground:

1. Planters

Planters are a fantastic addition to any school or nursery playground. They enable children to investigate the plant lifecycle as learn to care for plants and appreciate their beauty as they grow.

After all, they have put all the hard work into looking after them! Planters also enable you to create a pollinator-friendly environment for bees and other insects.

When creating a nature-rich playground, planters are a must as they help children observe and enjoy insects and wildlife such as birds and means they begin furthering their understanding of the natural world. They are also a practical way to introduce the topic of wildlife and how we protect and care for it.

2. Bug Hotel

The Bug Hotel is a magnificent place for learning about the natural world. It is an investigative outdoor resource, which enhances children’s learning about habitats and what insects need to survive – creating an exciting atmosphere around the natural world as the children head to check on their insects every day, observing what has moved into their hotel.  

Discussions and investigations are promoted through the addition of Bug Pods as the children carefully look at what is living inside, sharing with one another what they can see: developing their communication and language skills further.  

The bird feeder attracts a number of varied species of birds that the children can observe and feed – a wonderful way to teach children about protecting wildlife.

3. Wildlife Area

Encourage children to discover the natural world through investigative learning with our Wildlife Area. Featuring a pond, planting area and minibeast space, not only will children be able to discover and explore the needs of wildlife, they will also be able to investigate aquatic life.

Children will learn how to look after our water systems as they learn how to care for and look after anything from tadpoles and frogs to fish outdoors!

Your school doesn’t have to be located in a city to take part in developing a nature rich outdoor learning environment.

All of these fantastic resources help children to enjoy the experience of nature and wildlife every single day. Their knowledge and understanding of the natural world improves as well as their scientific learning.

Finally, it encourages children to look more carefully, both inside the school grounds and the area they live, at wildlife and nature as they begin to further appreciate it – learning to protect the natural world.

Schools can recreate this wonderful initiative in their outdoor area, educating the next generation on protecting both wildlife and climate change. If you’d like to create a nature rich school play area, please feel free to Contact Us. Alternatively, you can view our full range of Natural Play Equipment.