MP Report Cards – A reminder that Teach the Future wants to make sure that the next Parliament’s MPs will take action to improve climate education in schools. It plans to turn the tables on parliamentary candidates by grading them on its report card to reveal their level of ambition for climate education. It has step-by-step guidance to support anyone to take part and a communications toolkit to support this.
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An Election Manifesto – The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust has a manifesto for nature setting out key issues that require effective government support for nature and people in Wiltshire and Swindon. It is asking us to consider the parties’ and the candidates’ stances on these issues when we are thinking about casting our votes.
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Shared Values – The University of Bath and Global Action Plan are recruiting UK secondary schools to participate in research which examines how young people’s perceptions of shared values with their peers underpin environmental hopes and actions. If you are interested in taking part, click here.
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Framing Climate (Change) Education – NAEE has updated the blog it published two years ago setting out a framework for climate (change) education. It calls for non-prescriptive but authoritative guidance on how climate education could usefully be experienced by students as they progress through schools from reception to year 13. This might explore progression through the key stages, identify the contribution of different subjects, explore pedagogies, and set out what informal activities such as fieldwork, projects and school clubs etc can do. Details here, and comments welcome.
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New Voices – The DERC partnership project, the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning – ANGEL – is holding a virtual conference on June 7th focusing on global education and learning that is tailored for, and developed by, early career researchers. It is free to attend to get a taste of the future of research in this discipline. The event themes are:
- Rethinking Global Citizenship Education
- Global Education and Learning in practice
- Peace Education theory and practice
- The role of Global Learning in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA).
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Good Education in a Fragile World – A new seminar series is 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. The 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? It is online between 1300 and 14:00 on Thursday 27th June. Its theme is Pedagogies of (re)connection and it will consider what human learning interconnected in an ecological, social, historical and spiritual might look like. To book your place please click here.
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Charity Awards – The Building Heroes Education Foundation, Keep Britain Tidy and the Migration Museum have been shortlisted in the education & training section of the 2024 Charity Awards. The 10 category winners, plus the recipients of the Overall Award for Excellence and the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement, will be announced on 9 July. Keep Britain Tidy has been nominated for its EcoSchools work. Matthew Nolan, chief executive of Civil Society Media which organises the Charity Awards, congratulated Eco-Schools on making the shortlist: “Every year we are astounded and inspired by the breadth and depth of work going on across the UK’s wonderful charity sector.”
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Resisting Coloniality – A special issue of Research in Education focuses on Climate Changes and Educational Research: Mapping Resistances and Futurities. Contributors explore futures where resisting human-centrism, coloniality, and racial capitalism produces liveable outcomes.
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Greening Education – At the 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit, the term “greening education” was coined to imagine a “whole-of-system” education response to the climate crisis. The collaborative Greening Education Partnership (GEP) was subsequently launched to accelerate and mainstream actions at the international, national, and local levels.
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NPC – New Philanthropy Capital is a think tank and consultancy for the social sector. Its mission is to help charities, foundations, philanthropists, impact investors, social enterprises, businesses, and the public sector to maximise social impact in the lives of the people they serve. A webinar on June 24th (1030 to 1200) asks: How will the environmental crises affect people in poverty and experiencing health inequalities in the UK? Details here.
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If Humans Vanished – In the Conversation’s Curious Kids podcast, host Eloise Stevens and Paleontologist Bill Ausich explore whether dinosaurs could ever roam the Earth again.
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+93% – Recent research shows that letting parts of your garden or schools grounds grow wild with long grass can increase butterfly numbers by up to 93% and attract a wider range of species. The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, provides the first evidence that having long grass in your garden increases butterfly abundance and diversity. Butterfly Conservation has the details.
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A Relationship with the Natural World – Encounter is a guided nature journal for our phones. Nature writer Melissa Harrison says that it will open our eyes to the wild world around us, whether we live in the heart of a city or the deepest countryside. There are seasonal prompts, tips and ideas, that will help turn photos, notes and audio into a rich relationship with the natural world.
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Conservation Works – The University of Oxford has contributed to a first-of-its kind review on the success of a wide range of conservation actions. The results, published in the journal Science, provide the strongest evidence to date that not only is nature conservation successful, but that scaling conservation interventions up would be transformational for halting and reversing biodiversity loss and reducing the effects of climate change.