Becoming a sustainability educator

There’s a free CPD programme for all educators from 7th June to 5th July at the University of Gloucestershire.  It’s from 4pm to 6pm on Wednesdays – starting today.  You can explore how learning for sustainability can: join up the subjects that our learners study bring some big global issues into our teaching encourage young people to become…

The Stories We Live by

The University of Gloucestershire and the International Ecolinguistics Association have launched a new open online ecolinguistics course: The Stories We Live by.  This is Free Everything in the course is free, including accessing the materials, registering, tuition, and a certificate of completion. And you are free to reuse materials in any way (e.g., in teaching). On now Simply click here to access all the…

Arkive and Homework

When grandchildren visit, their homework in tow, it’s essential to get involved.  This is not so much to contribute the wisdom of venerability, as an extra pair of hands.  The latest task was to write about a creature found in the rain forest.  Whilst this was a generous topic: open-ended and full of possibility, there…

Monday Round up – June 12th

1. The Climate Reality website has a feature on how climate change is affecting forest fires.  There are also other articles and updates and you can see these on the Climate Reality blog. 2. FACE has a six-week pilot project working with a pupil referral unit that’s designed for inner city children with no experience of farms or…

A Queen’s Award for Savers

Savers, the West Midlands-based charity has received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service for its work on raising awareness of environmental sustainability through creative and artistic projects. NAEE trustee and long-standing member, Gabrielle Back, is also a trustee of Savers.  Congratulations to all concerned.  

The Zoo Hypothesis

The latest blog from the Science Geek is about the idea that we, on Earth, are being watched – as you would animals in a zoo – watched by alien (necessarily advanced) civilisations.  This is the basis of many a science fiction story.  But suppose it’s true?  We’d never know (unless they wanted us to)…

Is a plastic straw tax coming?

Britain’s pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants get through tens of millions of plastic drinking straws every year, with the huge majority of them going to landfill.  According to waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk, the plastic in single-use drinking straws takes centuries to decompose, causing problems both at land and at sea where plastic debris is a menace…