Children in the UK are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, a trend often attributed to rapid urbanisation and reduced daily contact with nature. Spending time in the presence of biodiversity is known to benefit mental health, physical health and wellbeing, and increase awareness of the natural world and conservation, yet there are concerns that direct experiences in nature are being replaced by indirect, technology-mediated experiences, such as through television programmes. However, there is little understanding of how the natural world is portrayed within these media, or how new types of nature experience contribute to the development of a connection with nature, ecological knowledge or the wellbeing benefits of biodiversity. There is also concern that an increasing disconnect between children and the natural world could lead to the attrition of ecological knowledge, reducing awareness of biodiversity loss and eroding support for conservation.

In this context, the relationship between children and the natural world is of crucial importance to the future of conservation and children’s wellbeing. In this thesis, I use school grounds in the UK as a focal point for studying the relationship between children and the natural world, and nature-documentary content to assess portrayals of the natural world in the media, as well as exploring the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK on parental attitudes to green space.

Chapter One: A wide range of disciplines are currently involved in research investigating people’s relationship with the natural world. I conducted a literature review and used an evidence-mapping approach to quantify existing research focused on human relationships with the natural world and to identify the extent of overlap between disciplines. I also quantified which disciplines use which terminology and to what extent terminology is discipline-specific. I found that research on people and nature is generally well integrated, with disparate disciplines citing each other fairly well. However, the communities of disciplines cited were significantly different between publishing disciplines, with research from psychology, education and public health being particularly distinct. There were also consistent differences between publishing disciplines in the terminology used to refer to nature, with a particularly broad range of terms used in psychology and public health research. This could act as a barrier to efficient knowledge exchange, potentially limiting both development of further research and the translation of findings into effective policy.

Chapter Two: To assess the biodiversity that children are exposed to while at school, I conducted biodiversity surveys of 14 primary schools in England. I quantified the amount of green space and levels of associated biodiversity, surveying for invertebrates, birds, plant cover and trees. I assessed whether amount of green space, species abundance, species richness or community composition of taxa varied with school fee-paying status (state-funded, including state and academy, or non-state-funded). Non-state-funded schools had higher levels of vegetation than state-funded schools, and this translated into higher invertebrate abundance, higher species richness of plant cover and larger, more mature trees. My findings have implications for the development of nature connection in children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and provide a powerful case for increasing funding to state-funded schools to improve biodiversity-related management of school grounds.

Chapter Three: During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, I designed and distributed an online survey for parents of primary school-aged children to investigate the importance of green space, the amount of time children spent outside and whether this changed as a result of lockdown. 83.3% of rural parents reported being happy with the amount of green space to which their children had access, in contrast with only 40.5% of urban parents. Lockdown restrictions affected parents' attitudes to the importance of green space, with 77.8% of urban parents saying their views had changed during lockdown, in contrast with 41.2% of rural parents. Further, most urban children spent more time inside during lockdown, while most rural children spent more time outside. These findings suggest that lockdown restrictions exacerbated pre-existing differences in nature access between urban and rural children.

Chapter Four: To assess the current state of ecological awareness among UK children, I asked children (aged between seven and 11 years old) from 12 primary schools in England to draw the wildlife in their local green space. I quantified animal and plant species richness and community composition of drawings, as well as the taxonomic level to which terms used in the captions and labels could be identified. I assessed whether there were differences in these metrics between state-funded and non-state-funded school pupils, and whether the level of identification differed between taxa. Children’s awareness was skewed towards mammals and birds over invertebrates, reptiles and plants, and children were also better at identifying mammals and birds over other groups. These differences were consistent across the state and non-state education systems, suggesting these biases are cultural rather than educational in origin.

Chapter Five: To investigate the level of information and coverage of the natural world provided by media portrayals, I analysed the content of wildlife documentaries to assess whether they provide an accurate reflection of the natural world and whether conservation messaging in documentaries has changed over time. Sampling an online film database showed that vertebrate groups, particularly mammals and birds, were overrepresented compared to their actual diversity in the natural world, while invertebrate groups and plants were underrepresented. This mirrored the precision with which these organisms were referred to, with mammals and birds being the most well identified and invertebrates and plants being the least identified. The frequency of conservation messaging increased over time, as did mentions of anthropogenic threats to biodiversity, which were not mentioned at all before 1970.

Chapter Six: To assess potential wellbeing benefits of exposure to biodiversity in school children, I collaborated with a secondary school to establish an experiment within their grounds, which assessed species richness in three different settings within the school and quantified changes in student anxiety and pulse rate after walking through different settings. I found that species richness differed significantly between settings, with a restored area of the school grounds having more species of both plants and butterflies. Both state anxiety and pulse rate showed a greater reduction in children who had walked through the most biodiverse setting. This case study has important implications for long-term wellbeing in children and highlights the value of green space in schools for enhancing biodiversity and wellbeing, as well as the role of university-school collaborations in helping ecology come alive in schools.

My findings show that there are differences in children’s exposure to biodiversity between school types and that current inequalities in nature access in the UK may have been exacerbated by lockdown restrictions, with implications for children’s exposure to nature during key, formative years for nature connection. The patchiness in interactions between children and nature across socioeconomic groups and regions in the UK has long-term implications for which species and ecosystems attract conservation funding and continue to feature prominently in collective cultural memory. While media portrayals of nature are diverse, there are limitations in the coverage afforded to different taxa, which is reflected in children’s awareness of nature in their local green spaces. Taken together, my results highlight the need for more concerted work to engage children with the natural world, both in natural environments and through other media, to foster a better understanding of biodiversity and threats the natural world faces. Only by doing so can we successfully engage the next generation with nature conservation, fostering the skills and motivation necessary to halt and reverse biodiversity declines.