Volunteer work for Natural England

At the moment I am working on a project for Natural England. This is based on volunteer work I am currently involved with at their Ainsdale Sand Dunes National Nature Reserve.


Through my volunteer work I have helped out at educational craft events on the reserve. These include helping out with activities such as face painting, identifying and teaching about the creatures on the reserve and different craft activities involving the use of natural materials with the children.

Through this experience I have recently produced some colouring in sheets for the reserve which include 10 of the main creatures/plantlife found at the Ainsdale dune habitats.

These colouring in sheets started out as A4 printable sheets with 1-3 creatures/plants on each. Through discussing with my tutor I have now developed them into a giant fold-out colouring in sheet. This adds to the playfulness of them. He had suggested that young children like to roll around on big sheets of paper and it gives more interaction. I also thought doing it on a larger scale could be a good idea with my degree show not long of.

I have added a habitat background for all the elements to be incorporated into with facts and headings for each. The sheet is folded into 6 with each section containing 2 creatures or plants. The top right square will be the front cover when folded up. I was also thinking that maybe it could be cut up into sections and children can work on different parts of the picture each having 2 creatures/plants to tackle then it can be brought back together again to form a big collage. This would mean that each child is learning about 2 creatures and it would also involve teamwork.

I would still like to develop the text further to make it look more playful. I would also like to add my website (when i finally make one) to the bottom of the sheet so as to get continual recognition for my work. It feels great to be designing something that has such a worthwile purpose and is involved in education and nature. The staff at Ainsdale Nature Reserve are very pleased with the sheets and they will be used often in educational events. I am hoping to be able to get some photos of them being used for my documentation of the project.