Award of CR/2021/20 - Understanding how children and young people in Scotland engage, connect wit...

Background & Context3. The positive health and wellbeing benefits of spending time outdoors and in nature are well understood, and NatureScot has an active role in ensuring these benefits are enjoyed by everyone. The Scottish Government’s Scottish Household Survey (SHS) and SNH’s Scotland’s People and Nature Survey (SPANS) (population-level quantitative surveys) provide evidence of attitudes and behaviours in respect to nature and outdoor activity in Scotland. Both surveys show a steady and significant increase in participation in outdoor recreation among adults in Scotland between 2012 and 2018. In 2018 participation reached its highest level since the 2006 baseline year (see Figure 1). Participation in outdoor recreation among 16-24 year olds is higher than the national average. Research undertaken in 2020 suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic may also have a long-lasting impact on how people in Scotland use, value and enjoy the natural environment.4. Neither the SHS nor SPANS currently address the attitudes and behaviours of under-16s in Scotland – the population-level quantitative surveys employed by NatureScot and many other organisations use 16 as the minimum age for participation. Several studies have shown the benefits of structured outdoor learning activities for children of all ages. The Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) project meanwhile suggests that access to private and public outdoor spaces have a positive impact on the behavioural development on younger children. However, studies focusing on primary age children and younger rely heavily on the account of parents and carers, which risk becoming less reliable for reporting the unsupervised behaviour of older children. This problem is more pronounced for older children and young adults, leading to poorer representation in research and evidence gathering. The teenage years have been identified as a particularly crucial stage for determining future behaviour as children develop more independence and gain greater autonomy over how they spend their time.5. To address this data gap, mixed quantitative and qualitative research was previously commissioned by SNH in 2011 that focused on 11-17 year olds. This important work found that there was a high level of interest in spending free time outdoors amongst young people in this age range. The qualitative research identified quality personal space and time to themselves, without adults (ideally with friends) as the main motivators to spending (increased) time in the outdoors.6. Engaging with nature on a sensory and emotional level can deliver a range of social, environmental and economic benefits, as well as developing a sense of connectedness with nature. Nature connectedness details the relationship between people and the rest of nature. It is increasingly recognised in psychology with evidence showing it to be associated with greater feelings of autonomy, personal growth, and purpose in life; lower levels of anxiety, depression and stress, and increasing attention span and cognitive function. People who feel connected with nature are also more likely to exhibit pro-environmental and pro-nature conservation (together pro-nature) attitudes and behaviours. Although being connected with nature does not require going outside, studies have pointed to links between nature connectedness and outdoor activity. Spending time outdoors and in nature, of course, have their own well-established benefits for health and wellbeing.7. It is understood that spending time outdoors and in nature can positively impact nature connectedness among children and young adults, with those having higher levels of access and broader ranges of experience showing higher levels of connection. However, less understood are the ways in which different kinds of places and the things young people do in these places impact this connectedness. This follows the ‘moments, not minutes’ principle which suggests that how people ‘notice’ or experience the outdoors is more significant in establishing feelings of connectedness than simply the duration of time spent there.8. The benefits of nature connectedness are particularly valuable for children and young adults in their physical and mental development and the formation of habits. It has been found that young people’s connection to nature, as measured directly using the University of Derby’s Nature Connectedness Index, often drops sharply from the age of 11, reaching a low between 13 and 18, which doesn’t recover until they are 30. These results indicate the importance of better understanding the teenage years and how young people independently access and spend time in nature.9. Further research is now required to provide an updated picture of children’s and young people’s engagement with the natural world and to explore the concept of nature connectedness, shown in research undertaken by Natural England to have a positive relationship to wellbeing and pro- nature behaviours among both children and adults. In particular, NatureScot are keen to better understand how unstructured, unsupervised time is spent outdoors by children and young people, the kinds of places that they visit, and the activities they do there, in order to more fully understand how these in turn affect nature connectedness and the benefits this brings for people and planet.