Children’s perception of biodiversity in their school grounds and its influence on their wellbeing and resilience

Figures & data

Figure 1. Examples of biodiversity perception drawings for two children (both 9 years old), one from the intervention group and one from the control group, before and after the programme of activities.

Figure 2. Mean number of drawn taxa before/after the activities by intervention and control groups. Error bars represent Standard Error of the Mean (SEM).

Table 1. Assessing significant change in the number of drawn organisms within each category for the intervention and control group before and after the intervention.

Category	Intervention (n = 294)		Control (n = 96)
	V–value	p-value	V–value	p-value
Trees	900.0	> 0.05	20.0	> 0.05
Other plants	5225.0	> 0.05	833.5	> 0.05
Lichen & fungi	588.0	< 0.05	4.0	> 0.05
Mammals	2544.5	< 0.001	415.5	> 0.05
Birds	3360.0	< 0.001	297.5	> 0.05
Insects	3940.0	< 0.001	404.0	> 0.05
Other invertebrates	1441.5	< 0.001	243.5	> 0.05
Amphibians	16.0	< 0.001	121.0	> 0.05

Figure 3. The percentage of children’s perception of biodiversity compared to actual biodiversity present in school grounds in the (a) intervention group and (b) control group children’s drawings before (B) and after (A). Error bars represent SEM. The ± represent the larger proportion of children over/ under perceiving the biodiversity present in school grounds.

Table 2. Assessing significant change in biodiversity perception likeness to actual biodiversity in school grounds for the intervention and control group before and after the intervention.

Category	Intervention (n = 294)		Control (n = 96)
	V–value	p-value	V–value	p-value
Trees	36,071	< 0.001	2565	> 0.05
Other plants	8221	> 0.05	1620	> 0.05
Lichen & fungi	1018	> 0.05	5	> 0.05
Mammals	4268	< 0.001	631	> 0.05
Birds	8135	< 0.001	1508	> 0.05
Insects	6377	< 0.001	561	> 0.05
Other invertebrates	2279	< 0.001	497	> 0.05
Amphibians	33	< 0.001	160	> 0.05

Table 3. Mean scores of the wellbeing and resilience measures for intervention and control group children.

Group	Wellbeing Before (95% CIs)	Wellbeing After (95% CIs)	Resilience Before (95% CIs)	Resilience After (95% CIs)
Intervention	115.3 (114.0, 116.6)	114.2 (112.8, 115.6)	31.5 (31.2, 31.8)	31.2 (30.8, 31.6)
Control	112.5 (110.0, 115.0)	112.5 (110.0, 115.1)	31.3 (30.7, 31.9)	31.7 (31.1, 32.3)

Figure 4. Mean percentage change of wellbeing and resilience scores in all intervention group children and in intervention group children that had initially low baseline scores. Error bars represent SEM.

Data Availability Statement

Data can be made available by request to the corresponding author.