By Robert Van de Noort
With the weather finally starting to turn warmer, and the summer lying ahead of us, many of us will be spending more of our time outdoors.
We know that having access to outdoor recreational space is incredibly important, and does wonders for our health and wellbeing. It also helps people to reconnect with nature and better understand biodiversity and environmental sustainability, something we know a lot about here at the University.
Last month, we were very proud to welcome thousands of visitors to our Whiteknights campus for our first ever Community Festival.
Luckily, the weather stayed dry for us and the sunshine even came out in the afternoon as people were enjoying the eclectic music offerings available on the main stage in our lovely meadow.
As well as workshops in painting, yoga, music and more, and sports taster sessions and demonstrations, visitors also had the opportunity to find out more about the innovative research going on at the University such as protecting bees and insects, understanding the cultures of the past, and improving awareness of climate change.
We hope everyone enjoyed exploring our beautiful nature-filled campus and it helped to restore and energise people after a busy working week. Remember that you can visit us throughout the year, and we have a number of dedicated walking routes signposted around campus.
In addition to our Whiteknights campus, we offer further green space for our local community to enjoy. Langley Mead nature reserve is 18 hectares of countryside along the banks of the River Loddon. With a series of walking loops and areas of natural beauty, it is part of an ongoing project aimed at restoring agricultural land back into habitats for wildlife and plants.
We will be hosting our annual National Meadows Day event at Langley Mead on Saturday, July 1. Please do come and join us to find out more about how we’ve used traditional management practices to successfully encourage greater biodiversity and environmental conservation. We will also be talking more about the opening of new natural open spaces for recreation later this year.
Education is something we obviously take very seriously here at the University. That is why we are delighted to have signed up to the Department for Education’s new National Education Nature Park initiative.
This will see us using Whiteknights as a ready-made nature park, which will provide more outdoor learning opportunities for children and young people, enabling them to gain a deeper appreciation of our changing climate and engaging in practical conservation work.
Environmental sustainability is one of the key missions of our University. I am proud that we are playing our part to preserve nature for our community to enjoy, and in helping to educate the next generation on the importance of conservation and biodiversity.
Professor Robert Van de Noort is the vice-chancellor of the University of Reading
