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Take on an environmental project

Protect nature with hands-on activities like litter picks, tree planting, and wildlife projects—led by young people!

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You’ll need

  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Tools for your project
  • Paper
  • Pens
  • Camera or phone for documenting the activity

Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.  
  • 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. 

Hands-on Action Projects

Get directly involved in protecting and restoring nature.

  • Organise a litter-picking walk or beach clean-up.
  • Clean up a local river, lake, or canal.
  • Monitor and maintain footpaths or trails to prevent erosion.
  • Plant native flowers or shrubs to support local wildlife.
  • Organise a tree planting event to restore woodland or green space.
  • Build and install birdhouses, insect hotels, bat boxes, or water stations.
  • Create or support a community vegetable, pollinator, or wildlife garden.
  • Set up a compost bin or wormery at your venue or in your neighbourhood.
  • Install a rainwater collector to water plants more sustainably.
  • Join a wildlife monitoring project, such as the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.
  • Volunteer with a local nature reserve, park, or wildlife trust.
  • Run a recycling drive or set up a new recycling point in your community.
  • Organise a local swap shop or upcycling workshop.
  • Make eco-friendly crafts like reusable tote bags from old t-shirts or draft excluders.

Awareness & Advocacy Projects

Take action by influencing others, raising awareness, or supporting change.

  • Run an eco-awareness workshop or activity for your group or community.
  • Create posters, displays, or social media campaigns on environmental issues.
  • Start a petition or write to your MP to support more bins, bike lanes, or green policies.
  • Advocate for environmental changes at your school, Scout group, or community space.
  • Host a local event, like a “Green Living Fair” or nature information evening.

Sustainable Living Challenges

Encourage change through collective challenges or campaigns.

  • Lead a "Low Waste Week" challenge encouraging people to reduce plastic and packaging.
  • Promote sustainable fashion by organising a clothes repair club or second-hand fashion show.
  • Set up a plant-based food challenge or local and seasonal food tasting.
  • Create and share energy-saving tips and “switch-off” reminders at your venue.
  • Encourage walking, cycling, or carpooling through a travel challenge or campaign.

  

Running this activity

  1. Ask everyone to think about how human activities (such as littering, erosion and footpath damage) can impact nature and the environments. You may want to write down everyone’s ideas.
  2. Now, ask everyone what you could do to help protect those areas, why it’s important to look after the environment and leave the world better than we found it.
  3. Together, create a list of things you could do to help the environment and let the young people decide on their own hands-on activities. You could use some of the ideas on this page.
  4. Some things to think about when planning your project:
    • Think about which environmental issues you're most passionate about tackling.
    • Choose a location that connects to your chosen issue and think about why it’s important.
    • Identify activities that will have the most positive impact in that location.
    • Decide on the best time of year or day to carry out your project for maximum impact.
    • Make a list of materials, including safety gear (like gloves or litter pickers), and where you’ll source them.
    • Plan how to carry out your project in a way that protects wildlife and the environment.
    • Decide how you’ll document your project (e.g. photos, videos, journals) and share the difference you made.
    • Think about how your project can encourage more people to get involved in similar activities.
  5. When you’re ready, start planning. Let young people lead in organising logistics, assigning roles, and preparing for the activity.
  6. Next, get outside and start making a difference. Encourage everyone to document the project, such as with photos, videos, drawings or written memories.
  7. Remind everyone to leave nature as you found it, tidy up after your project and take any litter or rubbish home.
  8. After completing the project, bring the group together to reflect on the work you did. Ask everyone:
    • How they think the project went.
    • How they feel about the project now it’s done.
    • What positive changes they saw or experienced.
    • What other actions they could do to help the environment.
    • What they would do differently next time to make a bigger impact.
  9. You create a campaign to raise awareness too about how everyone can help the environment, such as posters, flyers, social media campaigns or presentations. Everyone should think about the messages they want to share to inspire others. 

Reflection

This activity is all about our environment when out walking on the hills. Which of our actions can negatively impact wildlife and why? How can we show respect for nature when we’re out hiking or exploring?  How can we make sure that nature spaces are looked after for future generations? 

Hill walking can have negative effects on the hills themselves, how does erosion impact the environment? What types of human activity can harm natural environments or make natural processes, such as erosion, worse? Why is it important to leave no trace when visiting natural spaces? 

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Hiking and walking

Follow the guidance for activities in Terrain Zero, or the guidance from our adventurous activity pages.

Gardening and nature

Everyone must wash their hands after the activity has finished. Wear gloves if needed. Explain how to safely use equipment and set clear boundaries so everyone knows what’s allowed.

Outdoor activities

You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.

Rubbish and recycling

All items should be clean and suitable for this activity.

Phones and cameras

Make sure parents and carers are aware and have given consent for photography.

  • To make this activity easier, you could focus on a smaller project, such as a local park clean up, instead of a large natural area.
  • To make this activity harder, you could take on a larger project.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.