Monitoring and Evaluation for the Biodiversity theme should take the form of mini-reviews at key stage.
1) Evaluate Levels of Awareness
Are students and staff more aware of the importance of biodiversity?
Are students and staff aware that their habits/actions may have a positive/negative impact on biodiversity?
Are students, staff and parents more conscientious when buying products, taking account of the chain reaction and whether purchasing a particular product may have an adverse effect on the environment or not?
2) Evaluate Progress on Practical Improvements
Create a new habitat map to show any changes made to your school
Has the number of individual sightings increased?
Has species richness (the diversity of species) increased? Have numbers of particular species increased?
NB – remember to Record and Display results!
Don’t be discouraged! Increasing species numbers can be difficult and may take some time. Try to focus on the actions rather than the results!
Remember it is very important to keep in mind how the seasons & the weather may affect your results! Why not get students to look at the changes that occur between the seasons (life cycles etc.)! For schools that feed birds, simply counting the number of birds/species over the school year will yield results. You will notice more in mid winter and few, if any, at the beginning and end of the year. You get a simple graph that looks great!