Connecting to Nature – The National Education Nature Park and Climate Action Award scheme is launching in the autumn. Working with the Department of Education, the project aims to ensure every young person in England has opportunities to have a meaningful connection to nature. You can take part.
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Failing the Test – Teach the Future has published its report into exam boards and the climate emergency; specifically into the inclusion of sustainability in GCSE exam papers. This was an analysis of exam papers which aimed to evaluate the proportion of questions in major UK school examinations, which include themes of climate change, sustainability, and the environmental impact of human actions. It also aimed to highlight which subtopics within these are included the most often in exam papers, and which are included less often. The full report is here.
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Alba Asks – Teach the Future Scotland has updated its asks for the Scottish Government to improve climate education. Its new set of asks are:
- Mainstream inclusion of climate justice education across the curriculum
- Inclusion of the climate emergency and ecological crisis in teacher education and a new professional teaching qualification
- Increased priority for sustainability in school inspections
- Educational buildings are put at the front of the queue to be retrofitted to net-zero standards.
You can read more about the Scotland asks in detail here. The team held a Parliamentary Reception to present the updated asks at Holyrood, Edinburgh. You can read more about it in this blog on its website.
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Ewephoria – Natural England has appointed Shaun the Sheep as the new champion of the Countryside Code. Natural England says that its campaign with Aardman will see the popular animated character encourage children and young people to “respect, protect and enjoy” the countryside. From Mossy Bottom farm, Shaun and friends will follow the Countryside Code and show children how to care for nature, follow signs and share the space with others. It follows research from Natural England’s Children’s People and Nature Survey which revealed that 80% of children and young people agreed that looking after the environment was important to them.
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An Absurd and Discredited Theory – A new report from UCL’s Institute of Education says that one of the world’s largest fundamentalist Christian education groups is teaching its students climate change denial as fact, and still presents the theory of evolution as an ‘absurd and discredited’ conspiracy theory. Christianity is not the only religion which has sub-groups that do this.
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School EE – Last year, Pearson reported the views of over 6,000 teachers on education in England in a School Report. Its findings include:
- 9 in 10 schools in England are taking some action to protect the planet, from teaching environmental issues and solutions to running eco-clubs and energy-saving initiatives
- 6 in 10 teachers believe they play a powerful role in shaping sustainable future citizens, but 7 in 10 think the current education system is not supporting this
The 2023 report will be available shortly.
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Climate Ambassadors – The University of Bath has launched a new partnership initiative to connect climate experts with schools and colleges to empower them and their students with skills to fight climate change. You can find out more about Climate Ambassadors and how to sign up here.
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UKSSN – The UK Schools Sustainability Network brings together networks of students to connect and collaborate on issues they care about, fully supported by school staff. You can find an update on their latest activities here.
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Intrepid Explorers – Katie Field, University of Sheffield, and Silvia Pressel, Natural History Museum, encourage us to take a moment to consider the natural beauty of mosses – and their history as some of the most intrepid explorers in Earth’s history. Their Conversation article is: The secret world of moss, ancient ancestor of all plants and vital for the health of the planet.
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Tirwedd gymhleth – The Welsh Government has commissioned Natural Resources Wales to evaluate the case for a new national park around the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding National Beauty. The controversial proposal has been a long time in the making – Inkcap Journal covered the background, and the debate around the ecological merits of the idea, in one of its recent longreads (also available in Welsh). Project manager Ash Pearce said that the last time such a project was undertaken was in the 1950s, and it took around a decade to complete. “There will be stakeholder engagement and a public consultation to ensure that we get the best result for the people of Wales,” he said. Here’s hoping all local schools are involved.
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Rainforest UK – A new charity has been launched with the goal of increasing Cornwall’s area of temperate rainforest. Merlin Hanbury-Tenison told The Guardian that he hopes the charity will be able to triple the area of the UK’s temperate rainforest over the next 30 years.
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SEEK and ye shall Find – WWF says we might explore the nature around us by using the SEEK app from iNaturalist to document what’s living in local parks or backyards. Or take it a step further with a Biodiversity Audit activity.
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York Groundsel – Although this went extinct in the wild over 30 years ago, researchers have resurrected the plant in Britain’s first ever de-extinction event. It evolved after non-native Oxford ragwort hybridised with native groundsel. However, extensive applications of weedkiller eliminated it in the early 1990s, with only three plants surviving in pots at the University of York. These annual plants soon died, but a clutch of seeds was saved at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. 100 seeds were planted in a polytunnel last year, where 98 germinated. In February, thousands of new seeds were sown in plots around York, and this week the plants began to flower in the wild for the first time in 32 years. The Guardian covered the story.
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Smog in North America – Responding to warnings that the smoke from more than 400 wildfires burning across Canada poses risks to the health of tens of millions of people in North America, Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s Director of Climate, Economic and Social Justice, and Corporate Accountability Programme said:
“Smoke from hundreds of fires in Canada, many burning out of control, has shrouded some of North America’s biggest cities including Montréal, Toronto and New York in smog that is dangerous to health. These fires will have an unmeasurable impact on the quality of life and right to health of those forced to breathe in this foul air. Children, pregnant people, older adults and people with heart or lung disease are especially vulnerable to the small particulates generated by these fires, and these particles can be carried vast distances. Furthermore, the fires are having a significant impact on Indigenous Peoples, and have already forced the evacuations of the communities of Fort Chipewyan in Alberta and Uashat mak Mani-utenam in Quebec.”