Biodiversity Action Champions: Co-Creating Environmental Citizenship in, with, and for Communities

Biodiversity Action Champions is a collaborative project with Wonderseekers and funded by the University of Southampton’s Public Engagement with Research Unit. Our project aims to support through co-creation the development of community-level environmental citizenship by engaging with families in learning and acting for biodiversity.  We combine our work on enabling environmental citizenship in children through the University of Southampton’s Wild Citizens programme with the Caterpillar Champions programme offered by Wonderseekers for learning about habitats and embed it in a community setting to expland our approach to work and learning with families.  Our participatory approach gives voice to families resulting in a co-created programme implemented in, with, and for the community.  Our aim is to facilitate collective and individual action by knowing more about biodiversity, developing willingness to act, and confidence in making a difference for the environment.

We worked with 8 families (9 adult participants and 14 children aged 4-12 years old) at Leigh Park Library from March to July 2026. Our programme consisted of eight, 2h workshops starting with a co-design session where participants’ interests and needs were discussed, moving to workshops learning about plants, insects and small animals (including an outdoor learning session), a visit to the University to learning more about its work on biodiversity and research on environmental sustainability, and a Celebration event where families displayed their Biodiversity Action posters at the Library.

During the University of Southampton visit, the families visited Valley Gardens learning about the University’s approach to biodiversity by Amanda Boorer, Landscape Service Manager, and learned about the research done at the School of Biological Sciences with the support of Prof Mark Chapman, Dr Annabelle Fisher, Dr Anastasia Kolesnikova and doctoral researcher Sarah Connery. The positive impact of our work is shown in the comments below from parents and children:

“I wanted to say a huge thank you for the biodiversity course you provided for us. It has been hugely beneficial and it made [my son] decide he wants a career in science”

“I liked going to the university and like doing the plant hunt [at Valley Gardens] and going through the science lab and the greenhouses, that was all really cool” (Child, Family 3)

University of Southampton partners: Andri Christodoulou, Neta Shaby

Wonderseekers partners: Andy Keenan, Emily Mace

For more information contact Andri at: A.Christodoulou@soton.ac.uk