The aim of this project is to develop a mapped plan for urban greening and growing in Nottingham with children and young people from the community. The work is ongoing.
Location
Nottingham City Centre
Goals and Motivations
Green spaces have countless benefits on communities including improved wellbeing, increased physical activity & reduced obesity, stress reduction, noise reduction, urban heat island effect mitigation, improved air quality and drainage. Nottingham has been included in the top 5 UK cities with the most dangerous air pollution levels. Whilst there are various community gardens, allotments and parks around the city, the city centre itself is lacking in public green spaces. We want to estimate the square metres of green space in the public realm and use this to work with the city council for more.
People who are involved
This project began as a Community Mapping Fellowship with Public Lab, alongside @silentsairam and supported by @stevie and @warren.
It has been a highly collaborative project involving...
• Volunteers - Xanthea Haynes, Rachel Millner, Tom Bowyer, Lowri Virk, Megan Shore, Bradley Cook, Dindy Thomas and lots of random members of the public
• NGFP (Nottingham Good Food Partnership)
• Near Now studio at Broadway
• Stonebridge city farm
• Chaos magic art collective
• Alex Cole, artist experiencing homelessness
• Ignite! Futures
Groundwork Youth
• Dovecote primary school Lab_13 team
What are we working on now:
Having conducted 2 balloon mapping sessions, worked with kids on design and developing camera rigs & created 6 maps for city centre sites relevant to greening, I am now exhibiting the work thus far at a public gallery in Nottingham. I've invited members of the public to draw their greener visions for the city on a black and white aerial photograph print which I will be developing into a digital artwork and presenting to the council and community on the 22nd August. I am selling aerial photographs at the exhibition on a 'pay as you feel' basis to collect money for helium for another mapping event. This will hopefully be run with a local education charity, Transform. This should cover all the city centre greening areas and following that I will be able to make an estimate for the size of green space in the public realm. I'm also speaking at conferences on the importance of child-led environmental citizen science.
Updates
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Questions
Here's a place to list things you have questions about, or issues or challenges you’re hoping to solve in this project. What questions helped guide the work? Let's build out a Frequently Asked Questions area:
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Activities we’ve done in our project
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Data
Coming soon...