Our Bay, Our Future
This project builds on the highly successful work of the Morecambe Bay Curriculum, a teacher-led approach to valuing and learning about the locality, environment and sustainability, encouraging and empowering local children and young people to become the change-makers and the innovators the planet needs.
Thanks to National Lottery players, ‘Our Bay Our Future’ (OBOF) is possible with funding from the Climate Action Fund, a National Lottery Community Fund funding programme that supports communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in environmental action.
All the Our Bay Our Future programmes are geared towards developing skills, knowledge and values that spark behaviour change and climate action, essentially empowering the ‘youth voice’ and enabling young people to feel confident creating positive change.
Stretching from Barrow to Fleetwood, the project area includes 120 square miles of coastal, rural and urban environments.
Over the next 4 years, the project will:
- Mobilise action, helping care for Morecambe Bay, one of the most biodiverse places in the country
- Develop green skills, knowledge and values
- Grow a cross-bay network of Climate Action Leaders, sustaining long-term regional climate action
The innovative nine programmes, designed with community input, for toddlers to adults, will create a ‘ladder of participation’ leading from climate awareness to action and leadership.
Our Charity will lead 3 projects over the next 4 years to engage over 2000 children and young people aged 3-16 years with the first projects launching in Autumn 2026.
The projects we’ll be delivering are detailed below.
Watch this 2 minute film
To find out more about this project, please watch this short film. It explains how children and young people can get involved and how we’ll work alongside our partners.
If ‘Our Bay Our Future’ is of interest to you, please look at the project options below and contact us for further information.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a rich experience, we would advise a minimum of 6 hours of direct delivery with our practitioners. 12 hours is even better, and we can do more if the group want to continue exploring nature and climate action. For the Green Futures programme we can also deliver the John Muir Wild Places Guardian Award- which is a commitment of a minimum of 25 hours, with 80% of this time being outdoors.
Each programme can be delivered flexibly to suit the needs of the setting. For an educational setting it could be during school time, after-school or over an intensive period e.g., eco-week. For non-school settings, like a youth club, it could be evenings or weekends.
Our Bay Our Future is delivered by our Youth Programmes Lead and Youth Programmes Officer. With a combined experience of 30+ years, they are both skilled in delivering outdoor learning and climate action activities across multiple nature spaces and indoor venues.
For Green Connections, yes. For the other strands, no, however they might benefit from the experience. Our practitioners have up to date DBS checks, first aid and safeguarding training. You will need to identify and provide contact details for a representative to act as a go between for any logistical, behavioural or administrative queries.
A mix of secure indoor and outdoor spaces is best. If the weather isn’t great, an indoor space will help the group feel comfortable, however, we like to do as much outside as possible.
That’s ok. We have some funding to take young people to places around the Bay, and we can help you locate local green spaces we could walk to. We can also support with risk assessments and accessing additional staff support.
Young people will connect with nature, ask big questions and act on issues that matter to them. Along the way, they will build confidence, curiosity, teamwork and problem-solving skills – seeing themselves as change-makers for the future of Morecambe Bay.
It supports learning across all areas of the curriculum, such as geography, science, citizenship, PSHE and sustainability, while developing skills in enquiry, teamwork, fieldwork and young people’s voice.
Young people can celebrate their achievements through an in-setting event and showcase their work at the Three Degrees Climate Festival in Morecambe in June 2027.
This project is made possible thanks to National Lottery Players and the Climate Action Fund, a National Lottery Community Fund.