British Council – Here’s the latest British Council Schools newsletter.

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Visioning – You may already have a vision for your school, but do you have one for your outdoor area?  Creating a vision statement asks learners to imagine what they’d like the future of the site to look like. This can help during idea generation, as well as to keep your Nature Park journey on track as you start to make changes. There’s more detail here from the DfE’s Nature Park & Climate Action team.

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Bright & Green – Transform our World says that applications are open for its Bright Green Future programme.  This is a free 6-month environmental leadership and empowerment programme for 16-19 year olds, particularly young people of colour as Bright Green Future aims to tackle the lack of diversity in the environmental sector.  Applications will close once all 25 spaces are full, or by March 1st 2024, whichever comes sooner. 

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Sustainability in Education Conference  This takes place on Valentine’s Day in Bedford.  The organisers say: whether you have an existing sustainability action plan in place or are just getting started, this 1-day conference will provide Sustainability Leads/Teachers/School Improvement Directors/Operations/Facilities Directors with the tools to progress their school’s climate action plan and put that plan into action.  Speakers include: Joe Billington, DfE and Ann Finlayson, SEEd.  Details here.

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R J Jones Award – Matthew Rose, the Ecology Education Officer at Holland Park Ecology Centre is this year’s winner of the Worshipful Company of Educators’ R.J. Jones Award in Environmental Education.  Matthew has been a LEEF Fellow since 2015.  Congratulations.

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UK Steel Production – If you want background on the modern production of steel in the light of the decision last week to shut the blast furnaces in South Wales and replace them (by 2027) with electric arc furnaces, the 2023 report – Green Steel: the transition away from carbon – that NAEE wrote with Midrex Technologies Inc. will be a useful resource. This resource is aimed at secondary school science teachers. It explores what steel-makers are doing to find low-carbon and zero-carbon routes to steel.

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Protect & Improve – What do you know about the Office for Environmental Protection?  It’s a public body that sets out to protect and improve the environment by holding government and other public authorities to account.  It was created in November 2021, under the Environment Act 2021.  You can see its advice to government here.

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Ocean Plastics – Our World in Data explores ocean plastics and asks: how much do rich countries contribute by shipping their waste overseas? 

There’s also an article on two energy problems facing the world: most of our energy still produces greenhouse gas emissions, and hundreds of millions lack access to energy.  In summary:

The world lacks safe, low-carbon, and cheap large-scale energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Until we scale up those alternatives the world will continue to face the two energy problems of today. The energy problem that receives most attention is the link between energy access and greenhouse gas emissions. But the world has another global energy problem that is just as big: hundreds of millions of people lack access to sufficient energy entirely, with terrible consequences to themselves and the environment.

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Imagine – You can access Imagine, The Conversation’s weekly newsletter here.  This is the most recent which has a feature on 1.5 degrees C .  

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Awareness of Penguins – January 20th was Penguin Awareness Day.  To celebrate, WWF said we should take its quiz about animal groups and see if you know your herds from your flocks.  Penguins feature.

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What’s in a name? – Andrew Gosler, Professor of Ethno-ornithology at the University of Oxford, writes in The Conversationabout a campaign by North American ornithologists to replace all bird species named after people.  He asks: but what should they be called instead?  And here’s an article of his from 2021 on a related theme.

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Watching Wildlife – WWF’s latest Wildlife Watch is here.  There are features on Butcher birds and the UK shoreline.

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How Bad are Bananas? – There’s a revised edition of this well-known book.  It comes with a new 20-page guide on combatting the climate crisis.  

Bananas are mildly radioactive (as are we) because of a naturally-occurring unstable isotope of potassium, and they also produce antimatter (so do we). The average banana releases one positron – the anti-electron – about every 75 minutes because 0.001% of potassium-40 decays produce a positron.  But don’t worry about it.  If all the antimatter ever made by humans were annihilated at once, the energy produced wouldn’t even be enough to boil a cup of tea.  There’s more here from Symmetry magazine.

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