© H. Zell (CC BY-SA 3.0)
British Wildlife 38.1 October 2026

Comment: Keep faith in natural history: why the new GCSE must teach the skills of the naturalist

Natural history is the close, patient study of the living world as it is actually met – a swift over a street, a fox track in mud, the first celandine on a bank. It is learnt through sustained observation, naming, recording and noticing change.

As the campaign for a GCSE in Natural History enters its crucial final stages, Mary Colwell offers an impassioned argument for its focus on the skills of the naturalist, lest it be diluted with wider environmentalism.

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