Moorland Indicators of Climate Change Initiative (MICCI)
A UK-wide project giving secondary school students the opportunity to take part in real-world climate science
The initiative
Students from schools in or close to UK National Parks – including here in the Peak District - visit moorland or other peatland areas to carry out activities in the field which have been carefully designed to help monitor the health of these sites.
The initiative enables local communities to monitor the effects of climate change on the health of internationally important moorland landscapes. Participating in MICCI consists of making a half-day field trip during British Science Week in March. During the trip, students can take part in ten different experiments designed to see how peatlands are changing over time; whilst also exploring scientific methods and the relationship between weather, climate changes, carbon and water cycles, plants and wildlife – and the human environment.
The datasets collected by students can not only be used as part of the school curriculum, but will feed into existing long-term scientific monitoring work being carried out by Moors for the Future Partnership to inform the conservation of moorland and blanket bog habitat.
The initiative was set up in 2009, led by the Peak District National Park learning and discovery team and Moors for the Future Partnership’s citizen science team.
For more information – including how to get involved and results so far - visit the MICCI pages on the UK National Parks website: http://www.nationalparks.gov.uk/students/micci-project
