Mission to encourage more young people to engage with nature at night awarded funding

Three University of Chester academics – Dr Daniel Bos (Geography and Environment), Associate Professor Christina Stanley (Natural Sciences), and Dr Rebecca Collins (Geography and Environment) – will use the funding to develop a citizen science (cit-sci) initiative to engage young people in nature at night. 

Drawing on Christina’s work on anthropogenic stressors on bats, Daniel’s expertise in the use of digital technologies to record the natural world, and Rebecca’s work with young people as co-researchers, the team aims to use bat monitoring as the basis for a tool that helps young people connect with, and care for, nature in new ways.  

Bats have recently seen an alarming fall in numbers across the UK and sometimes have a reputation as being sinister or troublesome. The project aims to help improve their image and enable young people to gain a new understanding of nocturnal creatures and their environment, as well as the importance of their conservation.  

Daniel said: “The funding presents an excellent opportunity to bring together interested parties to focus on a misunderstood and under-researched subject. 

“This initial feasibility study will allow the team to produce a cit-sci initiative designed and built with and for young people to help understand and conserve nocturnal environments and species, in this case, bats. 

“The project will explore what makes an effective collaborative cit-sci project, how such techniques and data foster an ethic of mutual care, and how it can complement and enhance existing research. Crucially, the outcomes of this project can be translated and adopted by other environmental organisations, influencing regional, national, and global conservation efforts concerning nocturnal environments, bats, and youth engagement.” 

The ‘Nature at Night’ project commences on August 1 and runs until February 2026.  

Ongoing research has been taking place via the BATMAN (Bat Monitoring via novel Assays and smart Nano-electronics) project, where Christina is the principal investigator.  

The focal species for this project is the UK-native lesser horseshoe bat, chosen due to a relative lack of understanding of this protected species’ behaviour. A recent outing saw Christina, Daniel and Rebecca joined by BATMAN team members Lucy Morison (Behavioural Endocrinology PhD Student at the University) and Dr Camilla Soravia (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University) to watch more than 300 lesser horseshoe bats emerge from their roost at Chirk Castle in North Wales.