Education and Schools - Nature Networks

Covering Framework Delivery Principles:

Data, mapping, & monitoring
Finance & resourcing
Governance & decision making
Knowledge & skills
Monitoring, Evaluation & Reporting
Participation, engagement, & communication
Policy & Mainstreaming
Project Development
Project Implementation
Spatial Mapping

Page last updated 17 September, 2026

How can schools and education settings can help deliver Nature Networks?

Schools and education settings can play a key role in helping to make happen.

They can help connect young people and learners with nature, and offer opportunities to learn about local wildlife and habitats, and support outdoor learning, the development of environmental knowledge and practical skills.

School and education settings are often community hubs, offering not only the chance to deliver projects which contribute to Nature Networks (particularly acting as stepping stones within Nature Networks) and improve local biodiversity, but also helping to engage parents, families and local organisations.

This section of the Toolbox will be populated with more resources for teachers, educators and those working in STEM over the coming months.

A young person’s guide to Nature Networks

Schools

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Read NatureScot's guidance for teachers
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By NatureScot This document provides background information on Nature Networks, and how they are relevant to key components of the curriculum.

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Help us build a useful toolbox

Share your feedback on existing guidance and resources, as well as links to others you think would be useful. We’d also love to hear about any great Nature Network projects that we should showcase.

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Glossary

30 by 30
Target 3 in the Global Biodiversity Framework “Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories, where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories”. For Scotland 30 by 30 sites are made up of Protected Areas and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).
Corridors
A geographically defined area which allows species to move between landscapes, ecosystems and habitats, natural or modified, and ensures the maintenance of biodiversity and ecological and evolutionary processes. (IPBES)
Ecosystem health
Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem, by analogy with human health. Note that there is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem. Rather, the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary, depending upon which metrics are employed in judging it, and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment and ecological and evolutionary processes (IPBES).
Ecosystem services
Processes by which the environment produces benefits useful to people, akin to economic services (CBD).
Mainstreaming
In the context of biodiversity, means integrating actions or policies related to biodiversity into broader development processes or policies, such as those aimed at poverty reduction or tackling climate change (IPBES).
Nature based solution
Actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human wellbeing and biodiversity benefits (IUCN).
Nature Networks
A Nature Network connects nature-rich sites, restoration areas, and other environmental projects through a series of areas of suitable habitat, habitat corridors and stepping-stones.
Private finance
Financial flow from the private sector (not under government control)
Protected area
A clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values (IUCN).
Stepping stones
A habitat patch in a landscape that facilitates movement or offers refuge to species.
Wildlife friendly
Areas that provides a level of food and shelter or similar to support wildlife with minimal levels of disturbance.

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