Kate Howlett | University of Cambridge (original) (raw)
Papers by Kate Howlett
People and Nature, 2023
1. Research on the diverse benefits of nature to people is characterised by a broad range of disc... more 1. Research on the diverse benefits of nature to people is characterised by a broad range of disciplines involved, encompassing a variety of approaches, methods and terminologies. While a diversity of approaches is valuable, it can lead to difficulties in integrating and sharing findings, and could form a barrier to effective knowledge exchange, hindering the development and applications of research outputs.
2. As a starting point for this scoping review, we chose four broad research areas (medicine, psychology, education and environment), selected to represent disparate approaches to research on the benefits of nature to people, within and across which to explore overlap in citations and terms used to describe nature.
3. We conducted expert consultation and a snowball-based approach to source publications, resulting in a sample of 210 papers spanning multiple disciplines within each of our four research areas. For each paper, we recorded the discipline of the journal in which it was published (publishing discipline), the discipline of its first author (first-author discipline), the number of times journals of each disci- pline were cited in their bibliographies (cited discipline) and the term(s) used in the paper's title or abstract to describe the aspect of nature being explored (nature term).
4. The cited disciplines were significantly different between publishing and first- author disciplines, with papers from psychology, education and public health citing distinct communities of papers. However, disciplines generally cite a wide range of other disciplines, with articles in medical journals being particularly broadly cited.
5. Nature terms were significantly different between publishing and first-author disciplines, with some degree of consistency within disciplines (e.g. education pa- pers consistently used a narrow range of nature terms, such as ‘outdoor learning’). However, there was a notably high range of nature terms used within psychology and public health papers, indicating that research from these disciplines may be particularly prone to being overlooked by search strings.
6. The wide range of disciplines cited is encouraging, since this indicates that diverse research areas are generally aware of each other's work. However, to avoid unnecessary expansion of nature terms and support searchability, we propose four key terms for nature: (‘outdoor learning’ OR ‘outdoor education’), (‘nature’ OR ‘natural’), (‘green space’ OR ‘greenspace’) and (‘biodiversity’ or ‘trees’), which could be used across disciplines. We particularly propose that at least one of these be included in every paper, and all four should be included in review search strings. This is likely to result in a better understanding of the valuable, disparate contributions made by different disciplines to this expanding and important topic.
Environmental Conservation, 2023
There is increasing disconnect between children and nature in the UK. Given that childhood nature... more There is increasing disconnect between children and nature in the UK. Given that childhood nature experiences are important for the development of nature connection, well-being benefits and aspects of children's development, mapping the existing biodiversity that children are exposed to on a daily basis in schools and their grounds is vital to identifying areas of low biodiversity and to developing strategies to increase exposure to nature. Despite children spending a large portion of time at schools, there has not yet been an in-depth, in situ assessment of the biodiversity present in school grounds. Using a sample of 14 English schools, including state-funded and non-state-funded schools, we used remote images to quantify green-space area within a 3-km buffer around (buffer greenness) and within (school greenness) each school, including the school's grounds surrounding the buildings, and in situ images to quantify vegetation visible to children within each school's grounds (visible vegetation). We also surveyed trees, ground plants, ground invertebrates and birds within school grounds. School greenness correlated positively with visible vegetation, but buffer greenness was not related to either school greenness or visible vegetation. Buffer greenness correlated positively with plant richness, and school greenness correlated positively with tree abundance and richness. Visible vegetation correlated positively with tree abundance and richness, maximum tree diameter at breast height, plant richness and invertebrate abundance. Non-state-funded schools had higher visible vegetation than state-funded schools. Our sample indicates that schools can support considerable biodiversity and that this is broadly consistent across state-funded and non-statefunded schools. We suggest that increasing the amount of vegetation, through planting of trees, shrubs and borders, may be the most effective method of increasing school biodiversity, as visible vegetation had effects on the greatest number of taxa.
PLoS ONE, 2023
The growing disconnect between children and nature has led to concerns around the loss of ecologi... more The growing disconnect between children and nature has led to concerns around the loss of ecological knowledge and reduced nature connection. Understanding children's perceptions of nature is vital for engaging them with local wildlife and mitigating this growing disconnect. This study investigated children's perceptions of nature by analysing 401 drawings made by children (aged 7-11) of their local green spaces, collected from 12 different English schools, including state-funded and privately funded. We assessed which animal and plant groups were drawn the most and least often, quantified each drawing's species richness and community composition, and identified all terms used in the drawings to the highest taxonomic resolution possible. The most commonly drawn groups were mammals (80.5% of drawings) and birds (68.6% of drawings), while herpetofauna were the least commonly drawn (15.7% of drawings). Despite not explicitly being asked about plants, 91.3% of drawings contained a plant. Taxonomic resolution was highest for mammals and birds, with 90% of domestic mammals and 69.6% of garden birds identifiable to species, compared to 18.5% of insects and 14.3% of herpetofauna. No invertebrates other than insects were identifiable to species. Within plants, trees and crops were the most identifiable to species, at 52.6% and 25% of terms respectively. Drawings from state-school children had higher plant richness than those from private-school children. Animal community composition differed between school funding types, with more types of garden birds drawn by private-school than state-school children, and more types of invertebrates drawn by state-school than private-school children. Our findings indicate that children's perceptions of local wildlife are focused on mammals and birds. While plants feature prominently, plant knowledge is less specific than animal knowledge. We suggest that this skew in children's ecological awareness be addressed through better integration of ecology within national curricula and more funding for green space within schools.
People and Nature, 2023
Wildlife-documentary production has expanded over recent decades, while studies report reduced di... more Wildlife-documentary production has expanded over recent decades, while studies report reduced direct contact with nature. The role of documentaries and other electronic content in educating people about biodiversity is therefore likely to be growing increasingly important. This study investigated whether the content of wildlife documentaries is an accurate reflection of the natural world and whether conservation messaging in documentaries has changed over time.
We sampled an online film database (n = 105) to quantify the representation of taxa and habitats over time, and compared this with actual taxonomic diversity in the natural world. We assessed whether the precision with which an organism could be identified from the way it was mentioned varied between taxa or across time, and whether mentions of conservation and anthropogenic impacts on the natural world changed over time.
Mentions of organisms (n = 374) were very biased towards vertebrates (81.1% of mentions) relative to invertebrates (17.9% of mentions), despite vertebrates representing only 3.4% of described species, compared to 74.9% for invertebrates. Mentions were highly variable across groups and between time periods, particularly for insects, fish and reptiles. Plants had a consistently low representation across time periods.
A range of habitats was represented, the most common being tropical forest and the least common being deep ocean, but there was no change over time.
Mentions identifiable to species were significantly different between taxa, with 41.8% of mentions of vertebrates identifiable to species compared with just 7.5% of invertebrate mentions and 10% of plant mentions. This did not change over time.
Conservation was mentioned in 16.2% of documentaries overall, but in almost 50% of documentaries in the current decade. Anthropogenic impacts were mentioned in 22.1% of documentaries and never before the 1970s.
Our results show that documentaries provide a diverse picture of nature with an increasing focus on conservation, with likely benefits for public awareness. However, they overrepresent vertebrate species, potentially directing public attention towards these taxa. We suggest widening the range of taxa featured to redress this and call for a greater focus on threats to biodiversity to improve public awareness.
People and Nature, 2021
In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from na... more In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from nature than previous generations. However, interaction with nature at a young age can benefit wellbeing and long-term support for conservation. Green space accessibility in the United Kingdom varies between rural and urban areas and is lower for children than for adults. It is possible that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may have influenced these differences.
In this study, we assessed parents' attitudes towards green space, as well as whether the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions had affected their attitudes or the amount of time spent outside by their children, via an online survey for parents of primary school-aged children in Cambridgeshire and North London, UK (n = 171). We assessed whether responses were affected by local environment (rural, suburban or urban), school type (state-funded or fee-paying) or garden access (with or without private garden access).
Parents' attitudes towards green space were significantly different between local environments: 76.9% of rural parents reported being happy with the amount of green space to which their children had access, in contrast with only 40.5% of urban parents.
COVID-19 lockdown restrictions also affected parents' attitudes to the importance of green space, and this differed between local environments: 75.7% of urban parents said their views had changed during lockdown, in contrast with 35.9% of rural parents. The change in amount of time spent outside by children during lockdown was also significantly different between local environments: most urban children spent more time inside during lockdown, while most rural children spent more time outside.
Neither parents' attitudes towards green space nor the amount of time spent outside by their children varied with school type or garden access.
Our results suggest that lockdown restrictions exacerbated pre-existing differences in access to nature between urban and rural children in our sampled population. We suggest that the current increased public and political awareness of the value of green space should be capitalised on to increase provision and access to green space and to reduce inequalities in accessibility and awareness of nature between children from different backgrounds.
People and Nature, 2023
1. Research on the diverse benefits of nature to people is characterised by a broad range of disc... more 1. Research on the diverse benefits of nature to people is characterised by a broad range of disciplines involved, encompassing a variety of approaches, methods and terminologies. While a diversity of approaches is valuable, it can lead to difficulties in integrating and sharing findings, and could form a barrier to effective knowledge exchange, hindering the development and applications of research outputs.
2. As a starting point for this scoping review, we chose four broad research areas (medicine, psychology, education and environment), selected to represent disparate approaches to research on the benefits of nature to people, within and across which to explore overlap in citations and terms used to describe nature.
3. We conducted expert consultation and a snowball-based approach to source publications, resulting in a sample of 210 papers spanning multiple disciplines within each of our four research areas. For each paper, we recorded the discipline of the journal in which it was published (publishing discipline), the discipline of its first author (first-author discipline), the number of times journals of each disci- pline were cited in their bibliographies (cited discipline) and the term(s) used in the paper's title or abstract to describe the aspect of nature being explored (nature term).
4. The cited disciplines were significantly different between publishing and first- author disciplines, with papers from psychology, education and public health citing distinct communities of papers. However, disciplines generally cite a wide range of other disciplines, with articles in medical journals being particularly broadly cited.
5. Nature terms were significantly different between publishing and first-author disciplines, with some degree of consistency within disciplines (e.g. education pa- pers consistently used a narrow range of nature terms, such as ‘outdoor learning’). However, there was a notably high range of nature terms used within psychology and public health papers, indicating that research from these disciplines may be particularly prone to being overlooked by search strings.
6. The wide range of disciplines cited is encouraging, since this indicates that diverse research areas are generally aware of each other's work. However, to avoid unnecessary expansion of nature terms and support searchability, we propose four key terms for nature: (‘outdoor learning’ OR ‘outdoor education’), (‘nature’ OR ‘natural’), (‘green space’ OR ‘greenspace’) and (‘biodiversity’ or ‘trees’), which could be used across disciplines. We particularly propose that at least one of these be included in every paper, and all four should be included in review search strings. This is likely to result in a better understanding of the valuable, disparate contributions made by different disciplines to this expanding and important topic.
Environmental Conservation, 2023
There is increasing disconnect between children and nature in the UK. Given that childhood nature... more There is increasing disconnect between children and nature in the UK. Given that childhood nature experiences are important for the development of nature connection, well-being benefits and aspects of children's development, mapping the existing biodiversity that children are exposed to on a daily basis in schools and their grounds is vital to identifying areas of low biodiversity and to developing strategies to increase exposure to nature. Despite children spending a large portion of time at schools, there has not yet been an in-depth, in situ assessment of the biodiversity present in school grounds. Using a sample of 14 English schools, including state-funded and non-state-funded schools, we used remote images to quantify green-space area within a 3-km buffer around (buffer greenness) and within (school greenness) each school, including the school's grounds surrounding the buildings, and in situ images to quantify vegetation visible to children within each school's grounds (visible vegetation). We also surveyed trees, ground plants, ground invertebrates and birds within school grounds. School greenness correlated positively with visible vegetation, but buffer greenness was not related to either school greenness or visible vegetation. Buffer greenness correlated positively with plant richness, and school greenness correlated positively with tree abundance and richness. Visible vegetation correlated positively with tree abundance and richness, maximum tree diameter at breast height, plant richness and invertebrate abundance. Non-state-funded schools had higher visible vegetation than state-funded schools. Our sample indicates that schools can support considerable biodiversity and that this is broadly consistent across state-funded and non-statefunded schools. We suggest that increasing the amount of vegetation, through planting of trees, shrubs and borders, may be the most effective method of increasing school biodiversity, as visible vegetation had effects on the greatest number of taxa.
PLoS ONE, 2023
The growing disconnect between children and nature has led to concerns around the loss of ecologi... more The growing disconnect between children and nature has led to concerns around the loss of ecological knowledge and reduced nature connection. Understanding children's perceptions of nature is vital for engaging them with local wildlife and mitigating this growing disconnect. This study investigated children's perceptions of nature by analysing 401 drawings made by children (aged 7-11) of their local green spaces, collected from 12 different English schools, including state-funded and privately funded. We assessed which animal and plant groups were drawn the most and least often, quantified each drawing's species richness and community composition, and identified all terms used in the drawings to the highest taxonomic resolution possible. The most commonly drawn groups were mammals (80.5% of drawings) and birds (68.6% of drawings), while herpetofauna were the least commonly drawn (15.7% of drawings). Despite not explicitly being asked about plants, 91.3% of drawings contained a plant. Taxonomic resolution was highest for mammals and birds, with 90% of domestic mammals and 69.6% of garden birds identifiable to species, compared to 18.5% of insects and 14.3% of herpetofauna. No invertebrates other than insects were identifiable to species. Within plants, trees and crops were the most identifiable to species, at 52.6% and 25% of terms respectively. Drawings from state-school children had higher plant richness than those from private-school children. Animal community composition differed between school funding types, with more types of garden birds drawn by private-school than state-school children, and more types of invertebrates drawn by state-school than private-school children. Our findings indicate that children's perceptions of local wildlife are focused on mammals and birds. While plants feature prominently, plant knowledge is less specific than animal knowledge. We suggest that this skew in children's ecological awareness be addressed through better integration of ecology within national curricula and more funding for green space within schools.
People and Nature, 2023
Wildlife-documentary production has expanded over recent decades, while studies report reduced di... more Wildlife-documentary production has expanded over recent decades, while studies report reduced direct contact with nature. The role of documentaries and other electronic content in educating people about biodiversity is therefore likely to be growing increasingly important. This study investigated whether the content of wildlife documentaries is an accurate reflection of the natural world and whether conservation messaging in documentaries has changed over time.
We sampled an online film database (n = 105) to quantify the representation of taxa and habitats over time, and compared this with actual taxonomic diversity in the natural world. We assessed whether the precision with which an organism could be identified from the way it was mentioned varied between taxa or across time, and whether mentions of conservation and anthropogenic impacts on the natural world changed over time.
Mentions of organisms (n = 374) were very biased towards vertebrates (81.1% of mentions) relative to invertebrates (17.9% of mentions), despite vertebrates representing only 3.4% of described species, compared to 74.9% for invertebrates. Mentions were highly variable across groups and between time periods, particularly for insects, fish and reptiles. Plants had a consistently low representation across time periods.
A range of habitats was represented, the most common being tropical forest and the least common being deep ocean, but there was no change over time.
Mentions identifiable to species were significantly different between taxa, with 41.8% of mentions of vertebrates identifiable to species compared with just 7.5% of invertebrate mentions and 10% of plant mentions. This did not change over time.
Conservation was mentioned in 16.2% of documentaries overall, but in almost 50% of documentaries in the current decade. Anthropogenic impacts were mentioned in 22.1% of documentaries and never before the 1970s.
Our results show that documentaries provide a diverse picture of nature with an increasing focus on conservation, with likely benefits for public awareness. However, they overrepresent vertebrate species, potentially directing public attention towards these taxa. We suggest widening the range of taxa featured to redress this and call for a greater focus on threats to biodiversity to improve public awareness.
People and Nature, 2021
In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from na... more In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from nature than previous generations. However, interaction with nature at a young age can benefit wellbeing and long-term support for conservation. Green space accessibility in the United Kingdom varies between rural and urban areas and is lower for children than for adults. It is possible that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may have influenced these differences.
In this study, we assessed parents' attitudes towards green space, as well as whether the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions had affected their attitudes or the amount of time spent outside by their children, via an online survey for parents of primary school-aged children in Cambridgeshire and North London, UK (n = 171). We assessed whether responses were affected by local environment (rural, suburban or urban), school type (state-funded or fee-paying) or garden access (with or without private garden access).
Parents' attitudes towards green space were significantly different between local environments: 76.9% of rural parents reported being happy with the amount of green space to which their children had access, in contrast with only 40.5% of urban parents.
COVID-19 lockdown restrictions also affected parents' attitudes to the importance of green space, and this differed between local environments: 75.7% of urban parents said their views had changed during lockdown, in contrast with 35.9% of rural parents. The change in amount of time spent outside by children during lockdown was also significantly different between local environments: most urban children spent more time inside during lockdown, while most rural children spent more time outside.
Neither parents' attitudes towards green space nor the amount of time spent outside by their children varied with school type or garden access.
Our results suggest that lockdown restrictions exacerbated pre-existing differences in access to nature between urban and rural children in our sampled population. We suggest that the current increased public and political awareness of the value of green space should be capitalised on to increase provision and access to green space and to reduce inequalities in accessibility and awareness of nature between children from different backgrounds.