MEEN awarded Heritage Lottery funding

Schools Environmental History project wins Heritage Lottery Fund support

The Manchester Environmental Education Network (MEEN) has received £15,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting schools project called ‘Our Environment, Our Heritage’.

Working with Armitage and St Brigid’s Primary schools local young people will consider East Manchester’s distant rural past, examine the impacts of the industrial revolution on their locality and then consider what actions might be taken to improve environmental heritage for future generations.

MEEN supports schools across Greater Manchester interested in sustainability education but has a record of working closely with a number of schools in East Manchester partly because this is where MEEN is based, but also because the area has very specific environmental issues. Due to the industrial revolution there is a legacy of air, water and land pollution, which still has an impact particularly on land use and biodiversity in the area. The aim of the project is to explore this history through hand’s-on investigation, research and by talking to the local community.

MEEN’s coordinator, Raichael Lock, said, “MEEN is very excited to have received the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. Environmental History is a very new area of research and we are very pleased to be able to work with young people and their school communities where the issues are so relevant. ”

One of the schools will have a focus on the impacts of industry on soil and food growing in the area whilst the other will focus on the impacts on wildlife. Towards the end of the project the schools will come together to participate in an event which will share their findings with the local community and draw up recommendations and plans about how to improve the environment for the future.

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