A response to the DfE Strategy written by co-chairs of the UK Schools Sustainability Network operations group, Helen Burge (Priory Learning Trust, Somerset) and Paul Edmond (Heart Academies Trust, Beds), is on the Education Executive website. The UKSSN Ops Group was founded after COP26 in order to bring together the voices of school business leaders who are key to delivering sustainability. Members of the group meet once a month and there are now around 60 staff on a Teams site. Anyone who wants to be added to the group can email getintouch@ukssn.org.uk
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Suitcase Stories – NERC’s Creative Climate Connections programme explored climate adaptation through participatory storytelling with young people in secondary school and youth/community settings in West Yorkshire. This approach started from the questions: ‘Who is already suffering the impacts of climate change?’ and ‘What can we learn from them?’. Young people researched the issues and created short performances that packed into suitcases. You can find out more, and there are resource packs for educators here, on the York (St. John) website.
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See you in Tuscon? – Registration is now open for the NAAEE 2022 Conference (October 12–15) & Research Symposium (October 11–12). This is the first in-person conference for three years and there’s the option of participating online. This year, the theme will focus on the powerful role education can play in creating healthier communities.
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New to Nature? – Groundwork has been selected as the lead agency for the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Jubilee work placements programme – New to Nature. This will see at least 70 young people (aged 18-25) from underrepresented groups, offered paid 12-month work placements in roles focused on the natural environment. Working with partners The Prince’s Trust, Disability Rights UK, and Mission Diverse, the aim is to provide young people with access to good jobs that tackle the climate and nature emergencies but also to help the environmental sector to continue to diversify its workforce. There are a series of online events for interested organisations, the first of which is on 3rd August.
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Screen Time – Mobile gaming can be for good for you in helping develop wildlife empathy and encouraging conservation behaviours; so argues Amanda Dale writing on the eePRO website.
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Great Plains Drifter – Are you a Wild Classroom YouTube channel enthusiast? WWF says that you can check out the latest species facts and videos, take a virtual field trip to the Northern Great Plains, learn about biodiversity, or hear from WWF experts in its Conservation in the Classroom series.
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Children in Nature – The latest Children and Nature Network’s research digest is here. Issues covered include: the potential positive impact of nature-based learning for primary school-aged children, and children experiencing the health and well-being benefits of nature through both passive and active nature engagement.
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For Peat’s Sake – Sunday was International Bog Day. This celebrates bogs, fens, swamps and marshes to raise awareness of peatlands, the benefits they provide, the threats they face and what we can do to protect these habitats. Here’s an insight into this from the Shetland Amenity Trust.
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Garden Links – From now until September, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and The British Hedgehog Preservation Society are asking members of the public to link their gardens in a bid to help hedgehogs and to find Britain’s Biggest Hedgehog Street. Schools should be able to play a part in this as well.
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Bison Benefits – The European bison vanished from the wild less than a century ago owing to poaching and habitat loss. But thanks to the Wildwood Trust and the Kent Wildlife Trust (and the People’s Postcode Lottery) they are back in a small way in Kent. Three females were released last week into an enclosed area and will soon be joined by a male. These bison are descendants of 12 so-called founder animals that have been sourced from zoos. The idea is not just to help re-establish a vanished species, but to do valuable practical conservation work. More details here.
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Heritage World – This year sees the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention. This is a unique legal instrument that protects both cultural and natural heritage. The World Heritage List includes the most spectacular sites across the globe.
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Crisis in the Rother Valley – Nature Recovery Rotherham has welcomed Rotherham Borough Council’s decision to declare a nature crisis. Cllr Marnie Havard, representative for Wales ward and proposer of the nature crisis motion, said: “The nature crisis motion is so important to allow us to work across the council and imbed our concerns on our decreasing wildlife and nature to take positive steps for change and better outcomes.” It’s not clear what role the schools in the borough will play in this.
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COPs and Cows – The UK, along with more than 100 other countries, made a pledge at the COP26 meeting to cut global methane emissions by at least 30% from their 2020 level by 2030. Writing in The Conversation, Ian Plewis of the University of Manchester, says if we are to do this, there needs to be fewer cows and more crops. If achieved, the goal would mean a reduction in methane emissions from 51.4 million carbon dioxide-equivalent tonnes (MtCO₂e) in 2020 to 35.9 million tonnes in 2030. Plewis notes that the government has yet to give any indication of specific plans to meet that commitment – so he suggests a few.
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More on Methane – Also writing in The Conversation, Simon Redfern of the University of Cambridge says that climate change might explain why there has been a recent surge in methane emissions. He writes: “The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that methane is responsible for around one-third of the estimated 1.5°C of global warming (sulphur dioxide emissions have contributed around 0.5°C of cooling, so total warming is now just over 1°C since pre-industrial times), with around half due to CO₂. Scientists have puzzled over the fact that methane emissions have not only grown rapidly since 2007, but have been increasing at an even faster rate in just the past two years. Despite the pandemic, when lockdowns and stuttering industrial activity might have dampened many sources, methane emissions increased by the highest amount on record in 2021.