Go on a YouthShaped nature walk

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here.  Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up this activity

·       Choose an appropriate outdoor area such as outside your meeting place, a nature reserve, woodland area, riverside, canal, or park. If you’re going to meet at a location other than at your usual meeting place, make sure parents and carers know exactly where you’ll be, what people may need to bring, the day, the location, and what time to drop off and collect everyone. 

·       Make sure everyone knows to come dressed for the weather. Don’t forget to check the forecast and be prepared for it to change. 

·       It’s important to check the sunset times, making sure that you’ll have sufficient light throughout the activity. It’s best to run this activity on lighter evenings, such as in summer.

·       Remember to have suitable supervision, an InTouch process in place and activity consent forms. It’s important to make sure that anyone with medication, including an inhaler, brings it with them and gives it to a volunteer, too.

·       Make sure the area you visit is accessible for everyone, choosing a suitable place for drop off and collection. You may need to think about avoiding steps or steep gradients or including frequent breaks.

·       Make sure that all the plants, fauna and flora being touched are safe for young people. Remind everyone not to put what they find in their mouths, noses or ears. Never eat any berries you find. Ask everyone to avoid touching their mouths with their hands or licking their hands during this activity.

·       Make sure equipment and materials are age appropriate. Supervise the activity closely to make sure small objects are not put in mouths, ears and noses. Remind young people not to put anything in their mouth and wash hands regularly.

Introducing the space

1.     Everyone should head out to the outdoor space or meet at the chosen venue.

2.     Explain the boundaries of the walking area, or wider area if you’re letting people explore along the walk and tell everyone where the no-go zones are.

3.     If you’re walking along roads or footpaths, rather than in a woodland or park, give everyone a road safety briefing. You may want to remind everyone of the countryside code.

4.     Remind people to be calm, quiet and respectful, so you don’t disturb wildlife or other people. Avoid picking any flowers or plants, and only pick up nature objects. They should handle wildlife gently, put things back where they were found to make sure wildlife isn’t harmed, and take litter home. Remind everyone to never put anything in their mouths, never eat anything, and avoid touching their mouths or licking their hands during this activity.

5.     Tell everyone where adults will be walking in the group and what people should do if anyone needs help. Explain the signal to stop and how long the activity will go on for. A long blast on a whistle works well as a signal to stop the activity.

6.     Remember to take regular headcounts and have adults supervising young people at regular intervals throughout the group, including at the front and back. If you’re walking in a public space, young people should be paired up, so no young person is left alone, and they should run or move together.

Run the activity

1. Gather everyone together at the start of the walk. Give a safety briefing and let everyone know where you’re going on your walk. Remember, a nature ‘walk’ doesn’t have to mean a long walk through the woods. It could also involve going to a set area outside and exploring there.
2. Explain that you want people to use all their senses to look at nature, making sure to remember what they like and what their favourite things are on the walk. Everyone might want to wear gloves to touch the items and keep their hands clean or avoid certain textures.
3. If you’re using any equipment, hand it out and suggest ideas for what they could use it for. Explain how to safely use equipment and set clear boundaries so everyone knows what’s allowed. For example, paper, pencils and crayons could be used to make tree rubbings, draw things they see, or you could add things to the paper, such as mud, blackberries or grass, possibly using sticky tape.
4. If young people are unsure of what to do, at the first stop adults or young leaders could join in with a magnifying glass to investigate something in the surroundings, so people feel more confident of what they’re expected to do.
5. An adult should lead the walk, letting the young people set the pace for the walk. If some people are drawn to somewhere or something, let them stay and explore. You could have regular stops. Others could then carry on if there are enough responsible adults with the group to follow the Yellow Card and young people to adult ratios.
6. Remind everyone to have regular check in with all their senses while on the walk. What can they see, smell, touch and hear? You could then ask prompts or ask young people to discuss and explore the different senses further.
7. You could take photos of the things which young people notice or enjoy looking at. You can invite them to capture this themselves if they’d prefer to.
8. Everyone must wash their hands after the activity has finished.
9. When you’re finished, make some time to reflect and discuss what you saw, as this might influence your themes for YouShape. It’s a chance for everyone to share their experience of the walk and explore it further.
10. Take time to expand on what people found. If they heard a bird singing, you could all try to recreate the sound, imagine how the bird flies or think about where the bird lives throughout the year - does it stay here for the winter or fly away, and where does it go? For the YouShape theme, the person or group could then explore migration or try birdwatching. Remember, different individuals, pairs or groups could set different themes, rather than having a whole section theme.
11. Everyone should be curious about what each other discovered or found. You could invite people’s questions to deepen into their ideas. Ask each person about what they found, what they liked about it, what they want to know more about, what inspired them. Listen and note down what everyone says. Based on how the nature they found inspires everyone, talk about what you might like to continue exploring for the Squirrels YouShape Award.
12. Ask everyone to think about or write down what their theme for YouShape is. It could be based on what they’ve made. People could create a theme individually or together, in pairs, in small groups or as a whole section. This can be useful, especially if people have similar themes or ideas.
13. You may want to save the natural objects you’ve picked up in this activity to use for some more YouShaped activities, such as Bits and Bobs.