Young people across Europe are spending more time in digital environments while reporting rising levels of stress, anxiety, and disconnection from the natural world. Conventional environmental education often struggles to reach a generation growing up in urban settings, where forests, rivers, and open landscapes are not part of daily life. NatureVR an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Youth (KA220-YOU) was designed to address exactly this gap.
Running from January 2026 to June 2028, the project brings together five partner organisations from four countries: Stichting Anatta Foundation (Netherlands) as coordinator, BACKSLASH (Spain), Udruga Zazeli (Croatia), The Way A.P.S. (Italy), and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy). The consortium combines hands-on experience in youth work with expertise in environmental psychology, digital pedagogy, and academic research.
What NatureVR delivers
At the core of the project is the Nature Intelligence (NQ) model a framework that links the emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical dimensions of how people relate to nature. The premise is straightforward: a deeper connection with nature supports young people’s mental well-being and encourages sustainable behaviour. NatureVR translates this framework into practical tools that youth workers can integrate into their everyday practice.
The project is co-developing immersive VR experiences grounded in the NQ model, available in two formats one for professional VR headsets and one for printable cardboard viewers that any organisation can assemble at low cost. This dual approach ensures that the tools remain accessible to youth organisations regardless of their technology budgets, and to young people with fewer opportunities.
Alongside the VR tools, the consortium is producing e-learning modules for youth workers, an intensive four-day Training of Trainers programme in Spain, and policy advocacy materials targeting regional, national, and EU-level decision-makers.
The numbers behind the project
Over 30 months of implementation, NatureVR will train more than 50 youth workers as multipliers, directly engage over 150 young people in testing and using the tools, and reach more than 30,000 stakeholders through its awareness campaign. Every project output; VR tools, learning materials, methodologies will be freely available under an open licence for at least five years after the project ends.
Values guiding the work
NatureVR rests on four principles: evidence-based design through collaboration with researchers in environmental psychology and cognitive science; inclusion by default through multilingual content, subtitles, audio descriptions, and a focus on youth with fewer opportunities; co-creation with youth workers and young people at every development stage; and openness and sustainability of results well beyond the project’s lifetime.
What comes next
In the coming months, the consortium is conducting needs assessments with young people and youth workers across the four partner countries the foundation on which the VR tools will be co-developed. Follow the project’s progress on nature-vr.eu and join us on the journey of using technology to bring young people back into meaningful contact with the natural world.