Nature Connection – Generation Wild was recognised for ‘best contribution towards transforming nature connection’ at the recent 2024 Outdoor Recreation Network awards. The programme offers a free nature connection programme for schools in economically disadvantaged areas and it has just passed a significant milestone with the 100,000th nature activity being completed by participating children. To celebrate this, WWT has produced an animation showcasing the impact of the programme. It’s available here together with more details of the impact of the programme.
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Zero Carbon Schools – This is an initiative run by the Green Schools Project which enables students to explore the causes and impacts of the climate crisis, investigate their schools’ carbon footprints, and design and lead projects to reduce them. It also includes teacher training and support to inform and involve the local community. It is now open for schools to register for the academic year 2024-25. Click here to find out more information, to register to attend a taster session, and sign up to start (or accelerate) your school’s journey towards zero carbon.
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Recentring Justice – The 2024 Teacher Education for Equity and Sustainability Network [TEESNet] conference has been rescheduled for December 3rd in Liverpool. The theme is: Education for Repair and Realising Alternative Futures Together. The theme aims to “recentre justice in our conference dialogue and exploration of educational responses to global challenges”. For more information about the theme and the call for contributions please click here.
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Climate Change Education in Wales – Wales Net Zero 2035 has set up an education challenge: What could education, jobs and work look like across Wales by 2035? Help us identify a pathway forward for Wales towards net zero through education, skills and work by 2035 or sooner. It would like responses to questions such as these:
- How we educate students in compulsory education from the early years to 6th Form in climate change education
- How we incorporate/expand current vocational training programmes for skills for a just transition
- How we address Climate Change Education (CCE) at university level
- How to develop and roll out lifelong CCE learning so that all of the population of Wales is aware of the impacts of the dual climate and nature crises and what adaptations are required.
Please respond to stan.townsend@wcpp.org.uk
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Funding Futures – Teach the Future has been awarded £100,000 from the Let’s Go Zero’s Zero Carbon Fund to run Fund the Future, a high-profile advocacy campaign to secure commitments from all the major political parties to spend substantially more money retrofitting and rebuilding school buildings. You can read the press release to find out more about their plans. It says, if “your school is in a state of disrepair, help us raise awareness by sending us your photos and we’ll be collating this in a gallery on our website.”
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Good Education in a Fragile World – A new seminar series has been launched based on the recently published book: Good Education in Fragile World: The Value of a Collaborative and Contextualised Approach to Sustainability in Higher Education. Each seminar will unpack some of the tensions that emerge when answering the question: What kind of education is needed to restore the health and wellbeing of the planet and ourselves now and for generations to come? All seminars are online between 1300 and 1400. The next seminars are:
- Thursday 23rd May: Rethinking educational purpose asks difficult questions about the purpose of education in the 21st Century. To book your place please register here.
- Thursday 27th June: Pedagogies of (re)connection considers what human learning interconnected in an ecological, social, historical and spiritual world might be. To book your place please register here.
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GA Update – Click here to see the latest from the Geographical Association. It includes details of the National Festival of Fieldwork whose theme is: fieldwork for everyone. It’s being held throughout June.
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Anxiety to Action – Force of Nature sets out to help young people turn climate anxiety into action, and work with leaders to drive intergenerational solutions. It’s focused on educators, and how they can better empower young people to take action in the face of the global challenges we face, through better navigating their eco-anxiety, or climate emotions. You can sign up here for a 2 hour workshop on Monday June 3rd from 1730 (cost £25).
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Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You – This is the first major literary offering from the Right to Roam campaign: a collection of essays, each suggesting ways of reconnecting to the landscape, veering between practical suggestions and wild utopianism.
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Liparis loeselii – Plantlife says that one of its greatest success stories has been the Fen Orchid. This was one of the most endangered wildflowers in Europe and may soon be removed from the Red List for both England and Great Britain thanks to a decade of successful conservation efforts.
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Uncertainty and Risk – Click here to view Professor Judith Curry talk about her new book: Climate Uncertainty and Risk at the 2024 Annual GWPF Lecture. A pdf of the talk is available here. Curry is Professor Emerita at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she served as Chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences for 13 years. Her expertise is in climate dynamics, extreme weather, prediction/predictability, and risk science.
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Bees of the World – May 20th is World Bee Day although everyday ought to be given how important these insects are. The UN says that Nearly 90% of the world’s wild flowering plant species depend, entirely or at least in part, on animal pollination, along with more than 75% of the world’s food crops and 35% of global agricultural land. Not only do pollinators contribute directly to food security, but they are key to conserving biodiversity. To find out how you can support bees and #WorldBeeDay here are some ideas in a get involved guide.
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3700 By 2030 – Reverse the Red is a global movement promoting strategic cooperation and action to ensure the survival of wild species and ecosystems. Recvently, 9,700 attendees from over 190 countries recently met online for 24 hours of collaboration and signed a pledge to reverse species declines by 2030. Organizations have collectively pledged to help recover more than 3,750 species by 2030. Here are some success stories.
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Climate Data – The Economist says that each of the first four months of 2024 has been considerably warmer than the same month in any other year on record, and discusses this in relation to the coming end of the current El Niño period. Its article ends:
“The main force behind increasing temperatures is, undeniably, the world’s appetite for fossil fuels and the continued build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. El Niño has pushed temperatures up even higher, but it is not yet obvious by how much. That should become clearer in the next cycle: if temperatures do not drop by as much as expected, it could signal a step change in the rate of global warming.”