The End of the Elizabethan Era – To mark the death of the Queen and the end of the second Elizabethan Era we have a published a list of 50 significant events with an environmental or environmental education focus. This looks at the changes that have occurred over her reign and at some of the significant events that have taken place. It is, of course, a partial view, and we welcome additions to it either through comments or separate posts.
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4Cs on line – SchooliP, NAEE and the National Governance Association [NGA] have come together to provide schools and trusts with a free online tool to help governing boards adopt environmental sustainability as a strategic priority and for school leaders to develop a climate action plan. Based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the online tool is designed to cover all aspects of school life and is organised into the four Cs of Curriculum, Campus, Community and Culture. It consists of a series of questions and guidance to help schools and trusts focus their efforts on pertinent actions. You can access the free online auditing tool as part of SchooliP by registering here.
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Climate Leaders Rapid Evidence – Work on the DfE’s flagship Nature Park & Climate Leaders Award Programme will begin soon. For background details, the Natural History Museum’s Rapid Evidence Review report provides a comprehensive appraisal of the programme.
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Onthank Primary – Click here to read about an evaluation approach that’s capturing the impact of learning outdoors using the John Muir Award to inspire action for wild places, and narrowing the poverty related attainment gap through improving young people’s health, literacy, and numeracy. There’s a case study of Wild Places, Attainment and the John Muir Award and a film about the children’s experiences.
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Eco-Capabilities – Supporting children’s wellbeing through participatory art in nature is a research project exploring how the wellbeing of children living in areas of high deprivation can be supported through working with artists in familiar outdoor places. Full details here.
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Greening Education – Promotional material for the UN’s Transforming Education Summit which takes place in New York, from 16th to 19th September says that education must change to respond to the global climate and environmental crisis. And that, building on the knowledge and practice accumulated in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), a new Greening Education Partnership aims to deliver strong, coordinated and comprehensive action that will prepare every learner to acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to tackle climate change and to promote sustainable development. More details here and a survey.
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Entrenched Inequalities – Imran Tahir, a research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirms that children from poorer backgrounds do worse at every stage of the education system. The IFS report assesses existing evidence using a range of different datasets. These include national statistics published by the DfE on all English pupils, as well as a detailed longitudinal sample of young people from across the UK. It shows there are pervasive and entrenched inequalities in educational attainment. You can read about this at The Conversation.
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Crazy Characters – Earth Cubs promotes “positive storytelling, planet-saving gaming, and action-based learning about sustainability, the environment, climate change, equality, and much more” – for 3-11 year olds. You can explore Earth Cubs Schools here.
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Why Cyclones are Anti – The Met Office sort of promised a cyclone or two across the UK last week. If you have ever wondered how common cyclones are here, a feature in The Independent explores the question.
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And then there are hurricanes – Danielle, the first hurricane of the season, is on its way here across the Atlantic having formed west of the Azores, fading in power and influence as it comes towards us. For the first hurricane of the season to be as late as this week in September is rare, especially in a La Niña year. The jet stream, which gave us all that fine and hot weather over the summer, seems to be to blame.
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Record Monsoon Rainfall – Ben Clarke, from the University of Oxford; Friederike Otto, from Imperial College London; and Luke Harrington, from the University of Waikato argue in The Conversation that there are three key ways in which climate change probably made the devastating Pakistan floods worse than they might have been.
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On-line Waste – Doug Specht from the University of Westminster argues in another article for The Conversation that on-line life produces a surprising amount of emissions that need to be tackled alongside physical e-waste. For example, he says that the energy needed to power the average online ad campaign involves 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide being produced.
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CaCO3 – Our chalk streams are unique. Most are found in southern England. They are a haven for iconic species such as trout, otter and kingfisher and many invertebrates. However, a combination of population growth, an increase in water extraction and pollution have put huge pressure on them. Worse, research shows that a third of the water we take from rivers is wasted. See what WWF campaigns about in relation to these issues.
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8,000,000,000 – The world population will reach 8 billion in November 2022. Taking part in the World of 8 Billion student video contest, students can share ideas on how to tackle global problems related to population, and think critically about these global challenges and share what they think we should do to fix them.