As the idea of Spring starts to stir, its time to think about being proactive outside. Belonging to a society that encourages yours and your families interest is a really great thing to do. You can meet interesting people, talk and learn so much. Two of the biggest natural history societies in England are the British Entomological and Natural History Society
www.benhs.org.uk/ and the Society for the History of Natural History
www.shnh.org.uk/ . If you want something on a more personal level with meetings and field trips there are hundreds of local natural history societies in the UK - just Google your county and see what comes up! If you want to take part in important but also fun and easy surveys that really help the scientific community there are simply loads on the Internet. The surveys I fully endorse are the brilliant OPAL surveys
www.opalexplorenature.org/ . These surveys include our climate, bugs, water, air and soil. They are easy to do, come with great resource packs and the results really do count. Great for schools, families or just anyone!
Involve the whole family or class and get the results! Identifying grassland invertebrates and preparing pit fall traps for a ground beetle survey - children getting out there, increasing their knowledge, learning new skills and having fun - just fantastic!
