Manifestoes – NAEE has looked at all the main parties’ manifestoes to see what they say about education and environmental education. You’ll find them here: Lib Dems – Labour – Conservative – Green – Reform UK – SNP* – Plaid Cymru. *not yet published.
The latest Inkcap journal has a special focus on what the party manifestos have to say about nature and the environment. You can subscribe now to receive a digest every week.
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Not National Service –The youth environmental service [YES] that the Eden Project has developed gives young people aged 18-25 a year doing paid work on a variety of nature-based projects, learning new skills, making new friends, and helping address a variety of critical environmental challenges. Just don’t call it national service.
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Arts and Creativity – Simon John James, from Durham University says that it is in education policy where the arts and creativity can make the most long-lasting beneficial change. You can read his Conversation article here.
Meanwhile, also in The Conversation, Susan Ann Samuel, University of Leeds, and Maria Antonieta Nestor, University of Cambridge, argue that fresh debate and discussions with youth activists challenging the status quo can carry real legal and political weight.
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Youth Panel – In partnership with Unicef and UNESCO, the World’s Largest Lesson is promoting the use of the Sustainable Development Goals in learning so that children and young people can contribute to a better future for all. Their Youth Panel, aged 11-14 years, is involved in every stage of the work. You can read more here.
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Six Conversations – UNESCO and UNFCCC are launching a third series of six conversations on climate change education for social transformation from May to December 2024. The series focuses on teacher training and education systems on the road to COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. The discussions will delve into the challenges at all levels of education from the perspectives of teachers, educators, young people, and policymakers. Details here.
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Empower to Act – Climate change was the focus of award-winning research by Glasgow teacher and researcher Kirstin Campbell, who shares some of the most important messages to emerge from her findings in the TES. Her top key message is: It is not enough to teach students about climate change – we need to empower them to act against climate change.
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Live Electricity – Clicking here will take you to National Grid Live where there is an up to the minute display of the UK’s electricity production and use. There is also data for the past week, past year, and for “all time”. It’s a mine of information. School eco-clubs take note.
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Headline Lesson – The Economist Educational Foundation has a one-hour Headline Lesson to educate students on the concept of the circular economy, its implications for sustainability, and the adverse effects of unsustainable production.
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Let June Bloom – Plantlife urges us to keep our gardens, school ground and verges blooming for another month. It says: “By mowing only twice a year outside of April to July you could try to recreate the effect of a traditional hay meadow. This allows taller growing flowers such as red campion, knapweed, and scabious to grace your space with a more dynamic swirl of colours animated by a summer breeze. It holds more value for wildlife because when left undisturbed for longer, wildflowers and grasses can support the lifecycles of those invertebrates that depend upon them. It can be surprising what grows when grass isn’t cut.
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Wild Beaver Populations – Citizen Zoo reports that Natural England has published the results of two population surveys of wild beavers across England. Over the last decade, there have been increasing reports of beaver signs present along the river Stour catchment and surrounding areas in East Kent, along with beaver signs in Devon along the Rivers Exe and Taw. The surveys were commissioned by Natural England and conducted by a collaboration between the Beaver Trust, the University of Exeter, and the Devon Wildlife Trust, who worked to quantify the distribution and population size estimates of beavers in these catchments. Up to now, all licensed releases of beavers in England have mandated that beavers be released into large enclosures, and so these reports will undoubtedly inform current discussions at Natural England on legislation to allow for full wild releases in future. See the East Kent results here and Devon results here. Meanwhile, a family of beavers have been reintroduced to Suffolk for the first time in 400 years. More details here.
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Swift Awareness Week – This is coming up at the end of June. The Cumbria Wildlife Trust says look out for them wheeling over built-up areas in groups, chattering away with their characteristic high-pitched shrieks. Swifts look dark against the sky and have long, curved wings like a boomerang – here’s how to tell them apart from swallows and martins.
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12,000 Breeding Pairs – Restore Our Planet reports on the collaborative efforts of conservationists and communities have drastically increased barn owl populations across the British Isles from 4,000 breeding pairs in 1980 to around 12,000 breeding pairs today. One of the key strategies has been the installation of nest boxes, which provide safe nesting sites in areas where natural sites are scarce.
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Hotter and Sicker – The Conversation’s Imagine Newsletter reports that a hotter world is likely to be a sicker world. There’s a focus on malaria which killed more than half a million people each year during the last decade, West Nile virus, dengue fever (which is already in southern Europe), and the dangers of new diseases emerging.
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Re-polying Styrene – Engineers have modelled a new way to recycle polystyrene that could become the first viable way of making the material reusable. The team of chemical engineers, based at the University of Bath and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts say their technique could be the first to make recycling polystyrene both economically viable and energy efficient. Dr Bernardo Castro-Dominguez, a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Bath says: “Chemical recycling techniques are a major focus within chemical engineering right now, and cost- and energy-efficient ways to breakdown plastics to their primary building blocks such as polystyrene are urgently needed. More detail here.
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A reminder – June 19th is Thank a Teacher Day.