OPAL reaches the final of the National Lottery Awards
The OPAL project works all over England to get everyone involved in nature through a range of national and regional initiatives which aim to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds to get outside and explore their local environment. In doing so, it brings communities, scientists and nature enthusiasts together to contribute towards national scientific research
The project has made it through to the final of the National Lottery Awards as Best Environment Project, and needs your votes to win.
Linda Davies, OPAL Director, says “We are absolutely delighted that OPAL has made it through to the final of The National Lottery Awards. Through OPAL, we want to develop a new generation of nature-lovers, not just children and young people, but adults too who haven’t had the opportunities to get involved with nature. We hope the public will vote for us to win so that all of the community groups and school children across England who have contributed so much to OPAL’s success get the recognition they deserve.”
OPAL has partners with universities and community groups nationwide, working with thousands of people across England, many of whom have not been involved in nature before. There are a wide range of national and regional initiatives, supported by Lottery funding. Lottery funding has also paid for a community scientist to be based in every region, to work with local people, targeting especially some of the most deprived areas and communities in England.
Vote now for OPAL to win the National Lottery Award for Best Environment Project, by calling 0844 836 9694 or visiting the National Lottery website by 26th September to register your vote. More information on OPAL can be found at the OPAL website.
The NBN and OPAL
The NBN is one of the OPAL partners and has been developing tools to make public recording more accessible, via Indicia – the online recording tool. This is now being used by a number of organisations as they develop their own recording systems and public participation projects. Some examples are:
BBC Breathing Spaces and the Ladybird Survey
Recording Invasive Species Counts
Through OPAL, the NBN has also been developing the ability of the NBN Gateway to hold and display habitat data and to make the use of web services more accessible to more organisations. You can see some of the most recent developments if you look at the Interactive Mapping Tool and most recently the Get Map URL information, which makes it very easy for users to display NBN maps in their own websites.
