10 Minutes – Labour MP Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) introduced a ten-minute rule bill into the Commons last Tuesday to require climate change and sustainability to become key content across the school curriculum, integrated into every subject. The bill is the culmination of her work with Teach the Future on climate education and the decarbonisation of the education sector. You can read Nadia’s introduction here in Hansard. It will be back in the Commons for a second reading on Friday 28 January 2022.
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Estate Playbook – The government has published its Net Zero Estate Playbook that “captures best practices and guidelines outlining the government’s expectations of how property estates teams should implement improvements and interventions to buildings and estates to improve energy efficiency and contribute to the achievement of the Net Zero 2050 commitment.” It provides Government property professionals with guidance on how to approach the design, implementation, and monitoring of a Net Zero strategy and delivery programme. Comments or enquiries may be sent by email to ogp-sap@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
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Natural History – Although there is no news from the DfE about whether the GCSE in Natural History is to be approved or not, preparations at OCR continue in the hope that it will be. You can find the latest developents here.
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Greening the Whole Curriculum – Eco-Schools’ plans for its Youth Committee are now advanced and it will be announcing the names of the 25 young peope involved beginning on December 13th. Working alongside Eco-Schools staff, OCR, Speakers for Schools, and children’s author and environmental activist Georgina Stevens, the National Eco-Committee will “help green the whole curriculum and guide other young people on how to begin a career in the environmental sector”. The four tasks that the committee will be working on have been outlined.
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Assembly Update – Here’s a reminder of the Climate Assembly Report that was released last year. The report shows how a representative sample of the population believe the UK should meet its net zero emissions commitment with detailed recommendations across ten areas including: how we travel; what we eat and how we use the land; what we buy; heat and energy use in the home; how we generate our electricity; and greenhouse gas removals. Click here to read about a follow up from the BEIS select committee in July 2021. Their report is here. It contains a section on the importance of engagement and education, particularly deliberative public engagement.
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Climate Change Needs Culture – Click here to watch a short film from Picture Zero Productions that was made for COP26. In it, Eunice Olumide asks whether, without culture providing a new positive vision of the future, can we actually create it. She says that without new stories we risk repeating the mistakes of the past and asks whether culture might be the secret weapon for climate policy-makers.
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FE COP26 HE – You can now read EAUC’s reflections on COP26. EAUC welcomes the adoption of the Berlin Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development and the Catania Declaration of G20 Ministers of Education as these emphasize the importance of education to address the climate crisis and promote sustainability. It also welcomes the new COP26 work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment.
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Nature COP – The Inkcap Journal noted that the Environment Bill has been approved by Parliament. Environment secretary George Eustice said the the new legislation will “halt the decline of species by 2030, clean up our air and protect the health of our rivers, reform the way in which we deal with waste and tackle deforestation overseas.” The Wildlife Trusts welcomed measures around biodiversity net gain and local nature recovery strategies, but added that “the Environment Act does not live up to its promise to be a world leading piece of legislation.” RSPB expressed concern that the watchdog lacked true independence “to hold future Governments to account.” Ruth Chambers of Greener UK said “Passing the act is momentous but will count for nothing if it’s not seized upon with vigour by government and translated into real action on the ground”.
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Modelling the Climate – The University of Bath is running a seminar in celebration of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 – ‘Monitoring and modelling our global climate. This is on Wednesday 1 December at 14:15 on Zoom.
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Raising Our Game – A series of IOL webinars over 2021 provided an opportunity to explore a range of themes around equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the outdoors, and to stimulate conversation and collaboration inspiring action on broadening participation and strategic leadership, particularly within the outdoor learning community. You can view all the webinars here.
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Digital Learning – The Educational Policy Institute hosted a round table last week on Environmental Sustainability in Digital Learning. It was sponsored by Apple which said that the carbon footprint of its global operations currently was 22.6 million tonnes a year, 19% of which were due to the use of its products. The issues explored were: What are the environmental and financial implications of digital learning? What are the environmental implications of technology in learning and how can we best address these?, and How can we improve sustainability within schools? NAEE’s Deputy Director, Elsa Lee, was one of the contributors; Sally Wiseman, Deputy Director for Technical Standards at the DfE was another.
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Footprinting – Semble says that as it set out to calculate its carbon footprint, it was hard to find one tool that was suitable, and in the end, it used a variety of approaches. For those wanting to carry out their own carbon audit, it has now shared its favourite resources to do this.
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Isopods of the World – There are 35 to 40 woodlouse species native to the UK and about 3,500 species in the world. They are crustaceans and are related to crabs and lobsters. They live close to us in houses, walls, gardens, farm buildings, glasshouses, compost heaps, rubbish dumps and piles of wood or rubble. This guide from Norfolk has lots of detail. Wikipedia has a list of common names.
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Planet Earth – You can get access to the Planet Earth – a free magazine for everyone with an interest in environmental science. It isproduced by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council and can be read here.