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National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
Abstract:
National Urban Park St. Pölten (or short NUP St. Pölten) is a concept that aims to make
a valuable contribution to tackling the climate crisis at an urban level. The concept
combines environmental protection with environmental education and has the potential
to serve as a pioneering solution for other cities of similar size by achieving a lasting
cultural change. It shows our place as part of nature and changes the way we deal with
limited resources through broad public participation and deep involvement of pupils.
i
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
1. Nationalpark Stadt
1
National Urban Parks (or NUPs) are, as the name suggests, national park facilities that
are established in urban areas. They are usually not classified as IUCN Category 2
sites.
2
Such NRPs exist in Sweden, Finland, Canada and South Africa, where they are
used as a planning tool by the state to protect green infrastructure (GI) in cities.
The world's first National Urban Park was established in Stockholm in 1995
3
and has
been scientifically examined several times as a citizen participation project. The existing
projects have been implemented with varying degrees of success and, as far as is
known, are not interlinked with measures in the education system.
The ambitious goals of the city of St. Pölten, which are described in various municipal
papers (Climate Framework Strategy 2030, Master Plan 2050, fit4urban) suggest the
combination of this out-of-the-box concept with the existing work of the administration.
In particular, the climate framework strategy presented in 2022 shows that, in addition to
1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353803738_The_role_of_the_state_in_preserving_urban_green_infrastructure_-
_National_Urban_Parks_in_Finland_and_Sweden; https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/canadas-rst-national-urban-park/
2
https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/les/documents/pag-021.pdf
3
https://www.nationalstadsparken.se/
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
the classic fields of action energy, mobility and urban planning, a profound cultural
transformation is required in order to tackle climate change in a substantial way.
4
The creation of a national park is usually not a top-down, but a bottom-up movement, as
the history of the Donauauen or Gesäuse national parks shows. While the National
Urban Park Stockholm was created top-down, community initiatives have proven
successful in Finland. In St. Pölten, we intend to go even further with our project
partners and form a citizens' movement made up of citizen scientists of different ages
and organizations with diametrically opposed missions. The city and provincial
administration are important and equal partners in this citizens movement.
2. Massive Open Participation
Massive Open Participation (MOP) refers to initiatives or platforms where a large
number of people can engage, collaborate and contribute to a project, discussion or
activity. In contrast to traditional top-down engagement, MOP emphasizes the broad
involvement of people, often through digital means, allowing people from different
places and backgrounds to participate directly. MOP is a defining element of
environments such as online communities, crowdsourcing projects and citizen science,
where participants collectively contribute ideas, data or resources.
4
https://www.st-poelten.at/images/Folder/Klima-Rahmenstrategie_Ergebnis_F4UM_Pionierstadt_St._Polten.pdf
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
The National Urban Park represents an extension of the learning space from the school
to the city as an ecosystem, thus introducing space as a holistic learning element to the
formal education system. The space is experienced step by step along self-built paths
through semi-permanent natural and cultural elements. We transfer the concept of the
national park as an educational and protected space to the city by having pupils act as
informal national park rangers, understand ecosystem services, signpost routes,
improve the infrastructure of nature learning sites and guide visitors and younger age
groups. The emergence of the National Urban Park goes hand in hand with a
transformation of the formal education system by giving students a leading role in
exploration, design and conservation. This creation of meaning in the education system
is an overarching goal of this concept alongside the idea of environmental protection.
3. Gamified Learning Environment (GLE)
5
Gamification can be defined as a strategy that introduces game-like elements into non-
game activities to increase engagement and intrinsic motivation. Students who are only
extrinsically motivated are doing their tasks for the wrong reasons. Educators and
students have to expend more energy to achieve the same or worse results.
Gamification creates a friendly learning experience where the game is the focus, but
sustainable learning is the outcome.
5
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/latest-approach-gamication-engineering-education-
leotechnosoft/?trk=organization_guest_main-feed-card_feed-article-content
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
The National Urban Park St. Pölten includes the development of a Gamified Learning
Environment (GLE), which contains both analog and digital components. A special web
app transforms the city into a run & jump game in which you collect points and badges
as you explore the city's nature and find yourself on a municipal leaderboard. Quizzes
and challenges are used to gamify educationally valuable content. Analog gamification
elements are produced in cooperation with businesses and associations: these range
from physical infrastructure such as viewing or observation platforms, appealing
signposts, to printed collector's cards and the creation of collector's albums, which are
intended to encourage children of primary school age in particular to explore their home
town.
4. Internet of Nature (IoN)
6
The term Internet of Nature has been used since around 2019. In contrast to other
proponents of the Internet of Nature, however, in this concept it is not electronic sensors
that are the source of data leading to regenerative natural space design, but the
explorers who create an ever deeper connection between humans and nature through
inclusive participation in their home ecosystem. This increasingly deeper connection is
measured by the project-supporting web-app as a bioregional identity on every user’s
profile and represents both the learning success and a growing sense of home. The
6
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335985692_The_Internet_of_Nature_How_taking_nature_online_c
an_shape_urban_ecosystems
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
decentralized development of a digital twin of the real environment around learning and
meeting places is achieved by mapping a wide variety of points of interest (POI).
5. Added Value for Municipality
Urban green spaces provide valuable ecosystem services to city dwellers, including
(among others) reducing air and noise pollution, providing recreational and educational
opportunities, and also acting as a refuge for plants and animals in regional landscapes.
In a world where more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, it is an
urgent task to develop a systematic understanding of the factors associated with the
conservation and management of urban ecosystems.
Urban biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services have been ignored and
undervalued because ecologists have focused only on pristine habitats and rare
species. However, in the face of rapid urbanization, the challenge is to promote native
biodiversity in the urban landscape. This could be done by involving numerous interest
groups such as the local city administration, architects and, above all, citizens and
students in the design of the neighborhood.
7
5.1. Educational Innovation
7
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237048176_Reshaping_Urban_Green_Spaces
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
The progressive disconnection between humans and nature is an interdisciplinary topic
that is occupying scientists from a wide range of disciplines.
8
Although the benefits of a
stronger connection to nature are clear to common sense and have been scientifically
proven in many respects
9
, modern societies have not yet managed to restore the
connection to nature in the necessary time frame and social depth. Innovative solutions
are needed and there is scholarly agreement that outdoor education is one of them.
10
5.2. Public Participation
The implementation of climate adaptation measures can either be decreed top-down or
rather freely developed bottom-up. The difference for the administration of a
municipality is 1. the effort required to implement such measures and 2. instead of
having to work against the population, finding it on their own side as a supporting or
even driving force.
5.3. Increased Social Capital
8
Erich Fromm, Die Gesunde Gesellschaft; Jean Liedloff, Das Kontinuum-Konzept: Auf der Suche nach
dem verlorenen Glück; Gary Snyder, Die Praxis der Wildnis
9
Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods: Rescuing Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder;
Gregory N. Bratman et al, Nature and Mental Health: An Ecosystem
service perspective
10
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003010890/outdoor-learning-across-
curriculum-peter-higgins-simon-beames-robbie-nicol-heidi-smith
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
The broad involvement of a wide range of stakeholders and working towards a common
goal has a not insignificant side effect: the stakeholders get to know and trust each
other better. In times when society is divided by political, religious, ethnic, economic
and, not least, age-related factors,
11
a single lever that can increase social harmony and
cooperation is a kind of magic wand that is desirable not only at community level but
also at supra-regional level.
Overview of potential partners in the pilot project St. Pölten
6. Partners
The partners for this project are Green Steps, a non-profit which has been working on
the pedagogical activation of St. Pölten's natural environment since 2020 and has laid
the foundation for the National Urban Park St. Pölten concept by establishing a
decentralized educational model that empowers teachers and pupils to explore the
natural environment and jointly develop the Internet of Nature.
The rural youth of Lower Austria has demonstrated their craftsmanship in many ways by
building lookout points, raised beds, shelters, etc. at a wide variety of locations. In this
11
The corrosive forces and dwindling social capital in modern, increasingly heterogeneous societies were
vividly described by Francis Fukuyama in The Great Disruption.
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
respect, the rural youth is seen as an ideal partner for the construction of the trail
infrastructure.
Sparkasse NÖ Mitte recognized the value of Green Steps' groundwork early on and
awarded the CIVITAS
12
prize to the Big Friendly Giants project, which can be seen as
the forerunner project leading to the National Urban Park St. Pölten concept. Sparkasse
NÖ Mitte is invited as a financial partner, especially when public funding that needs to
be applied for to implement the concept requires interim or bridge financing.
Sparkasse NÖ Mitte holds 25% of Geschützte Werkstätte St. Pölten, a social enterprise,
which could take over the signposting of the routes and points of interest planned by
pupils.
The city administration should be involved in this concept at an early stage, particularly
via the tourism office and the climate coordination office. Collection cards for the routes
and information brochures about the project should not only be available at the Museum
Natur, but also at the tourist office on Rathausplatz. City tourism is likely to be a major
beneficiary of this project, which will make St. Pölten an innovative pioneer of slow
travel and sustainable educational tourism.
St. Pölten's schools are to be invited to implement the concept via the city's Department
of Culture and Education and the Lower Austrian Directorate of Education and, with
their pupils and teachers, represent the most important human and creative resource by
practicing place-based education. Place-based education is a method that emphasizes
the authentic experience of the natural environment and sees itself as a further
development of traditional environmental education.
13
The House of Nature located in the state museum of Lower Austria could form the
intellectual center of the project, as it provides concentrated knowledge about regional
nature in the form of exhibits and archives.
7. Financing
Until 2023, FFG funding of up to EUR 325k was available for cocreation spaces to
implement such participatory concepts.
14
Green Steps applied for this funding in 2022
and, as a small no-name association, made it to the final round presenting the project to
12
https://www.greensteps.me/library/big-friendly-giants-von-der-sparkassenstiftung-mit-eur-5000-
gefoerdert.php
13
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379669944_Scaling_Place-
Based_Education_Through_a_Networked_Game
14
https://www.g.at/junge_talente_energiewende
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
an expert jury, where the application was rejected as not feasible due to the lack of
support from the city.
Anyone familiar with FFG selection procedures knows that it is a great success to have
reached the final round with this project concept and being invited to present it to the
jury. The NUP St. Pölten concept is therefore very likely to find funding if the right
partners recognize the added value and work together. The application documents from
2022 are available for partners and can be used as the basis for a new funding
application.
For example, the up to EUR 99k high 100% funding “Climate-resilient transformation in
regions” of the climate+ and energy fund, which relates to skills shortages and water
management, among other things, would be an option. This concept creates interest
and systemic understanding among participating students for taking on green jobs and
can demonstrate regional solutions for water management.
However, if the required partners cannot be found in the pilot project location, the
concept can be rather easily implemented in other municipalities where local, regional,
national and European financing vehicles are made available.
8. Project Contact
Knut is co-founder of Green Steps e.V. His interest in nature protection and educating
the next generation led him to a Chinese SOS Children's Village in 2000 and to Yunnan
in 2005 as part of his environmental law dissertation on the establishment of the first
Chinese national park Pudacuo. Between 2006 and 2020, he worked as a consultant in
business and public service with a focus on China and high technology in Vienna &
Shanghai. Since 2018 he has been working as an environmental educator and trains
nature guides. He has been qualified to teach geography and economics at Austrian
secondary schools since 2023.
Gloria has been instrumental in developing the National Urban Park St. Pölten since
June 2021. She studied natural and environmental sciences at the University of Parma
and completed a master's degree in biology with a focus on “Animal Adaptation and
Behavioral Biology” at the renowned Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Her
academic career has taken her to Costa Rica, where she worked with capuchin
monkeys in the Lomas Barbudal Reserve, to Ecuador, where she researched the
foraging behavior of capuchin monkeys in urban areas, and to Nepal, where she studied
the foraging behavior of fallow deer in Bardia National Park.
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
Lukas is co-founder and technical director of Green Steps e.V. He has been responsible
for the development of the Green Steps ARK since 2019 and translates the educational
and ecological specifications into adapted technology that promotes the relationship
with nature and between people. He has been a freelance Linux system administrator
and full stack programmer since 2007 and has since gained extensive expertise in
software engineering, server hosting and UX/UI design. He studied East Asian Studies
at the University of Brno and worked in various IT roles in Shanghai from 2013-2020.
• All three can be reached at info@greensteps.me
• The project website can be accessed at the following URL:
https://www.nationalpark-stadt.at/
• A communication group for the pilot project has been set up on Signal
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
9. Annex: Pictures from the climate frame strategy presentation 2022
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
National Urban Park St. Pölten – Project Concept
i
Project related documents:
▪ https://www.greensteps.me/library/was-kann-architektur-wenn-sie-auf-bildung-
trifft.php
▪ https://www.greensteps.me/library/gamified-nature-education-is-key-to-urban-
climate-change-adaptation.php
▪ https://www.greensteps.me/library/staedte-und-ihr-evolutionaerer-zweck-als-
lernraum.php
▪ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379669944_Scaling_Place-
Based_Education_Through_a_Networked_Game
▪ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372459745_How_can_gamified_enviro
nmental_education_support_municipal_efforts_in_dealing_with_the_climate_crisi
s_Synergies_between_the_Green_Steps_Mobile_Campus_40_and_the_Climate
_Frame_Strategy_of_Sankt_Polten_