OECD+ – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is consulting with education stakeholders in seven countries including the UK. The aim is to explore broadening the purposes of education; ie, what does education need to be like if all learners are to really flourish? In the UK, the Department for Education (DFE) has asked the FED, its partner Parentkind, and Teach for All, to organise a series of online meetings to help shape thinking. To facilitate this, the FED wants to hear from learners (aged 16-25). Please fill out this form if you would like to become involved in this consultation.
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Schools for all? – In recent decades, secondary schools in England have been subject to successive rounds of reform. Many recent ones have reinforced an emphasis on traditional academic subjects and the acquisition of knowledge. Drawing on data from an ESRC-funded study, Young Lives, Young Futures, a new report report discusses the educational experiences of young people across England, including the potential impact of these reforms on their lives. You can read the report here.
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Action – Impact – You can read about the impact of UKSSN during the last academic year in its UKSSN 2021/22 Impact Report. This includes summaries of its representation at COP26 and its summer residential to Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire. You can also read about the role UKSSN has played in helping to transform the education system on pages 33-35 of the recent impact report by host charity Global Action Plan: Our Lives. Our Planet. Global Action Plan’s impact.
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Eco-Calendar – UKSSN teacher, Silvia Sanchez, has created an eco-calendar for each month showcasing all the landmark eco events & celebration days of the year. The calendar is available as a PowerPoint and can be customised to add your school events that align with the theme of that day or week. To access the resource, click here.
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Understanding and Engagement – A new report in DERC’s Research Report series: Student Teachers’ Understanding and Engagement with Education for Sustainable Development in England, Türkiye and Pakistan is now available. You can read it here.
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Castor fiber – If you want to stimulate a school debate about a contemporary environmental issue, why not try beavers. They were reintroduced in 2008 and there are now about 2,000 across Great Britain. This Unherd article by John Lewis-Stempel, which argues that rewilding is a misguided fantasy, provides a rich mix of information and provocation.
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In the Dark – Every year, at 8.30 pm on the last Saturday in March, people around the world come together to turn off their lights for an hour. This aims to raise awareness of nature loss and climate change, and show a commitment to take action to benefit people and environment. You can connect your students to nature with the Earth Hour educational packet which contains ways to engage young people before, during, and after the event.
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Communicate 2023: Together for Nature – Registration is now open for the 2023 Communicate conference which will take place on the 14th, 15th & 16th November with online and hybrid programme alongside in-person workshop events in Bristol, Manchester and London. In the lead up to and following the conference, there will be roundtable sessions taking place online for in-depth discussions on specific topics.
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Communication Tool – Back in 2021 there was an Oxford Talk Climate Change COP26 campaign. The organisers have now published a paper about their campaign in Climatic Change which offers guidance for successful climate discussions among diverse groups of people. Here’s a link to their tweet thread. The next phase of the project will be a climate conversation tracking map that will be a free tool for environmental campaigns.
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When Wolves no longer Wandered – A number of football teams removed images of animals from their logos on social media last week Friday to raise awareness of World Wildlife Day. For example, Crystal Palace vs. Aston Villa meant no eagle or lion, Hull City lost its tiger, and Wolverhampton Wanderers their wolf.
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Overweight People – Humans now weigh much more than all wild mammals according to a study by the Weizmann Institute of Science. The report shows that the biomass of wild mammals on land and at sea is dwarfed by the combined weight of cattle, pigs, sheep and other domesticated mammals. A team headed by Prof. Ron Milo found that the biomass of livestock has reached about 630 million tonnes, 30 times the weight of all wild terrestrial mammals (approximately 20 million tonnes) and 15 times that of wild marine mammals (40 million tonnes).
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Crane Success – The common crane is one of Britain’s rarest breeding birds. This year, the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has announced 71 pairs were recorded across the UK in 2022. This represents the second highest number since the species vanished in the 1500s. You can find out more here.
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30% by 30 – The High Seas Treaty, agreed at the United Nations last week, was the result of over a decade of talks involving more than 100 countries. It commits signatories to protecting 30% of maritime areas that lie beyond national jurisdictions by 2030. This will restrict human activities such as fishing and drilling. UN News has the details. Laura Meller, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “This is a historic day for conservation and a sign that in a divided world, protecting nature and people can triumph over geopolitics.”
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Sand Eels – Defra has a new consultation on closing English waters to the industrial fishing of sand eels. A ban on this practice will help to safeguard a food source essential to the health of threatened sea bird species.