A Busy Week – This week brings the International Day of Education (24/01) and the World Environmental Education Day (26/01): opportunities to highlight the importance of education to achieving environmental sustainability.
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A Taste of Zero – The next Greener Schools Zero Carbon Schools taster sessions have been announced. These are the times of the sessions with links to register:
School Leaders: Tuesday 31st Jan 11:00am to 12:00pm
Academy Trusts: Thursday 2nd Feb 10:00am to 11:00am
Local Authorities: Thursday 2nd Feb 2:00pm to 3:00pm
NAEE is pleased to sponsor these. Here’s what will be covered:
- the importance of climate education and how it can be implemented in schools
- how and where to start with carbon emissions reductions in schools.
- how this fits with The Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy
- the Zero Carbon Schools programme and how you can get involved
- where to look for more support from other organisations
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Youth Ambassadors – HundrED has partnered with the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) to launch a Youth Ambassador Programme that supports future innovators and changemakers to create and build upon social impact projects tackling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through online workshops, discussions, opportunities for mentorship and a closed discord channel, Youth Ambassadors will collaborate and learn to tackle some of today’s global challenges. In addition to providing support to these future innovators, this programme aims to build a supportive and inspiring online community of young people aged 12 – 19.
Upon completion of the programme, Youth Ambassadors will gain:
- connection to a global community of like-minded young people
- confidence to develop their own ideas
- resilience when things don’t work out and ability to adapt and change
- hope for the future, feeling like positive things are happening in the world
- a better understanding of the SDG’s and social impact projects around the world
You can apply here.
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Exeter Exhibitions – Three visual translations of the We Still Have a Chance climate stories and the ‘12 Stories for 12 Days of COP27’ project led by Dr Eliana Maestri, are opening at venues across Exeter. The first, at MakeTank on Paris Street, until 3 February, is a collection of artworks produced by students at Exeter schools, each working with a different Daisi artist. A second exhibition – in the form of a series of vibrant prints will run until April at the Exeter Phoenix café gallery. For more information, click here.
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Future Schools – The latest UCL Centre for Educational Leadership’s thinkpiece: The Future School by Valerie Hannon has been published. These research-informed outputs focus on pressing global challenges facing educational leadership. In this one, Valerie argues that creating schools fit for the future can benefit from drawing on sets of design principles used by organisations that systematically engage in futures thinking.
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On the Edge – the Edge Foundation is a built and natural environment think tank and network. It is multi-disciplinary in a landscape remarkable for its abundance of single-discipline institutions. It started as a means of creating a shared space between the architectural and engineering institutions, and is a voluntary group with no staff but with stakeholders across the built and natural environment professions. It encourages cross-disciplinary debate and campaigns for change that will improve outcomes for society. A policy priority is to build climate and biodiversity skills and understanding with climate skills and understanding being delivered at all stages of education.
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Forest Guide – A new guide: 50 ways forest and outdoor learning experiences benefit child development contains insights into the importance of outdoor play for children and adults. For example:
- 93% of schools believe outdoor learning improves children’s social skills
- parks, fields, and playgrounds are the most popular outdoor learning venues among 76% of young people
- teachers also benefit from outdoor learning as 79% say it has informed their teaching methods
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Island Ideas – Shining a spotlight on the education practices of islands across the globe has been a feature of the Virtual Island Summit for the last three years. Innovation on islands is often discussed from the perspective of energy and governance, but as the VIS2022 session highlighted, islands are also leading educational hubs opening pathways to improve schooling at a global scale. During last year’s session, speakers explored the effects of the pandemic on island schools, restructuring curriculums, improving understanding of child poverty in remote areas, and how to build on current education measures to meet more ambitious learning goals.
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FutureLearn – Schools and universities have a responsibility to educate all learners on sustainability. A new three-week course from UCL, sets out to provide an overview of the key issues relating to sustainability and how to explore these with learners, whether you teach in schools or in higher education.
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Family Action – Cornell University has a new online course: Climate Action with Family and Friends. It starts on February 13, 2023.
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Splat! – A bug splat survey offers a window into the decline of nature in Britain.
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Extinctions – The Guardian has published a range of data related to the loss of biological diversity. And there’s more age of extinction coverage here, with biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield writing on Twitter.
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Urtica dioica – In an article for The Conversation, Aimee Brett from Nottingham Trent University says that we need to begin to love stinging nettles as they help wildlife survive, especially in urban and agricultural areas. In the UK, they are the caterpillar food plant for comma, painted lady, peacock, red admiral, and small tortoiseshell butterflies. The spread of these nettles into our gardens and wasteland (from their natural woodland habitat) has allowed these butterflies to expand their range.
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Solar PV Capacity – Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) estimates that in 2022, the world newly deployed 268 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, 47% more than the 182 GW deployed in 2021. Demand outpaced the supply of the polysilicon raw material for panels. Having fallen to less than $7 / kilo in 2020, it rose to $45 in September 2022. This increased the price of solar but not by nearly as much as fossil fuels. BNEF expects 316 GW of new solar to be deployed this year, suggesting that there will be a total solar capacity of 4,500 GW by 2030. That’s good, but still less than the 5,300 GW BNEF estimates we need to have to meet net zero targets by 2050. Click here for some interactive graphs of future energy demand.