The Golden Thread – UCET, the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, has a new report on teacher professional development. It has a section on climate change and the ecological emergency which we covered in a blog last week. The report says that that the entire ‘golden thread’ from the Early Career Framework (ECF) to the National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) is silent on these issues. Meanwhile we are failing to recruit sufficient teachers for schools with 29% fewer new entrants to postgraduate training courses than needed this year.
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COP 27 Reflections – Dr Beth Christie, Moray House School of Education, was at COP27 and here she reflects on her experiences and what it means in terms of possible next steps for learners, educators and enablers of learning across the world.
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Young Rewilders – The Young Rewilders Community have relaunched themselves as European Young Rewilders to better engage and support a generation of future rewilders. It says that the future of the rewilding movement lies with young people, who are increasingly knowledgeable and passionate about nature, conservation and rewilding. They say that young people are already key actors in efforts to make Europe wilder, and have huge potential to accelerate the scaling up of rewilding across the continent.
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Fire and Flood – The Children and Nature Network says that climate-related fires and floods are all too common these days for cities in the western United States; for example, as experienced by students at Killip Elementary school in Flagstaff Arizona. But the Network says that Killip is now a model of what can sprout, literally, after traumatic natural disasters. You can read more.
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Introduction to Climate Teaching – A course from the University of Glasgow: Introduction to Teaching Sustainability and Climate Action is aimed at early years to upper secondary. It’s for teachers who wish to learn how to embed climate literacy and education into their curriculum.
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NOAA’s Planet Stewards – This gives educators in schools, colleges and universities access to opportunities and resources enabling students to become scientifically literate individuals within communities, and prepare them to respond to environmental challenges. It also supports educators’ efforts to implement hands-on action-based projects that conserve, restore, and protect human communities and natural resources from environmental challenges. You can access: their website – upcoming Events – and educational resources. You will also find archive collections comprising past webinars, book club selections, and newsletters.
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Activities Guides – Global Schools has launched a range of activities guides to promote learning and activity in the classroom around the SDGs.
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Communicate 2022 – We can all now watch some of the online content from the recent Communicate 2022 conference on its YouTube channel. There is more to follow but currently available are:
- Green and blue skills
- Nature content creators
- Inclusivity and citizen science
- Partnerships with artists and arts organisations
- Innovative memberships comms
- Using collections for environmental engagement
CLOtC National Conference – This takes place on Thursday 2nd March 2023 at the West Midland Safari Park. It will focus on ‘Achieving quality learning beyond the classroom’ and be hosted by Paul Rose – adventurer, TV presenter and ambassador of learning beyond the classroom. Also confirmed are three keynote speakers – NAEE vice-president Mick Waters, Ann Scannell, teacher of a Gold LOtC Mark school, and Jon Clarke, Shadow Headteacher at the Walsall Academy. Sales of discounted advanced tickets close on 31st December.
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COP 15 Preparations – Jo Riggall, Grasslands advocacy officer for Plantlife reflects on the recent COP 27 climate conference as she and the advocacy team make final preparations for COP 15 in Montreal, where the focus is on biodiversity. She writes: “At this year’s climate Conference of the Parties (CoP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt), we were pleased to see greater recognition of the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems as a critical part of governments’ climate change strategies. In particular, Plantlife worked with WWF International to showcase how the protection and restoration of global grasslands, savannahs and rangelands can deliver climate mitigation and adaptation measures. However, grasslands are still glaringly absent from the final CoP27 agreement.”
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Earthshot – The 5 winners of the second year’s Earthshot Prize were announced in Boston last week. The Notpla organisation is from the UK. Its founders say: “Just 9% of all the plastic ever produced has been recycled and 12% has been incinerated. The rest lies in landfills or has been dumped into the oceans. Notpla is an alternative to plastic made from seaweed and plants. It is always totally natural and entirely biodegradable and can be used to create a range of packaging products, such as a bubble to hold liquids, a coating.”
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Wild Ennerdale – Natural England has announced the creation of a new Super National Nature Reserve (SNNR) in the Lake District [Wild Ennerdale], home to threatened species such as red squirrels, Arctic Charr and Pearl Mussels. This new designation recognizes landscape scale approaches to protecting nature, and is part of the governments ongoing works to deliver on its ambitions to create ‘bigger, better and more joined-up’ landscapes to improve conservation outcomes for nature in the future. You can read more here.
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Breaking News – Future Crunch has the good news that Tanzania is winning its fight against tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Cases have fallen from 306 per 100,000 people in 2015 to 208 per 100,000 in 2021, and annual deaths have declined from 55,000 to 25,800 in the same period. Tanzania has the sixth highest TB burden in the world. Details in The Citizen. And Brazil’s Ministry of Health has reported a 28% decrease in malaria cases, falling from 194,979 in 2017, to 140,385 in 2021. Across the region of the Americas, overall cases have fallen from 1.5 million to 650,000 in the last two decades, and there’s been a 56% reduction in deaths from the disease. More detail in Outbreak News.
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Net Zero Trading Down Under – The UK Government, in partnership with PwC and Tech Nation, is publishing its Net Zero Innovation Handbook. This is focused on Australia and New Zealand and follows the UK’s Presidency of COP26. You can find out more here.