Digital Storytelling – Students in the London Schools Eco Network [LSEN] have traveled to the year 2050 to report back on their hopes and fears for the future. You can see their multimedia letters from the future on YouTube. These were produced through a digital storytelling workshop organised by Bill Finnegan, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. For more information on Bill’s work with schools, see his information pack. LSEN says that if you are interested in creative approaches to thinking about climate and the future, you should also check out Imagine 2020, a climate fiction competition by the online magazine Fix by Grist.
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Rewild the Kids – Playing outside should be a post-pandemic priority says a feature in The Conversation. John Reilly and Mark Tremblay say that this current generation of children will face a range of challenges, including the impacts of climate change, increasing globalisation, and the consequences of rapid technological change. They will need to become habitually physically active in order to grow into healthy, resilient adults who can survive and thrive in a changing world.
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Climate Change Education – On April 20th (1600 to 1800), the Universities of Bristol, Exeter and Bath are offering a free online conference for educators about Climate Change Education (CCE). It’s suitable for all who want to explore how to adapt teaching and learning in response to the climate emergency. The event will cover what young people and children want from us as educators, and the latest findings and implications for teaching. Educators from across subject areas and educational settings will share their experiences and point to a range of high quality resources. There will be opportunities to get involved with further research activities to facilitate the development of new innovative approaches to Climate Change Education. More detail here.
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Arts and Culture meet Nature – Wild Rumpus, the organisers behind Timber Festival, has joined forces with #EnglandsCommunityForests and a network of 11 community radio stations to create the first ever Urban Forest Sound Map, taking you further into the forests and woods around our towns and cities. The Your Forest radio series was launched on 21st March, and runs for 4 weeks. It explores the importance of forests to our local communities. Listeners are invited to discover the health boosting benefits of spending time amongst the trees with ‘This Morning’ GP, Dr Zoe Williams and Black Girls Hike founder, Rhiane Fatinikun.
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Philip Neal – Our Chair of Trustees has re-published a slightly edited version of the obituary of NAEE champion, Philip Neal. This was first published in 2011 in Vol 98 of NAEE journal, Environmental Education (pages 31/32) and was re-published with the permission of the three original contributors: Norman Farmer, Sue Fenoughty and Nick Jones. The obit paints a vivid picture of the man, NAEE, and environmental education more widely from the early 1970s for the next 30 years.
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NASA and NOAA – The Guardian has created an online resource page of graphs fed by scientific data which track the Earth’s temperature, CO2 concentration, ice coverage, and sea levels. The graphs are fed from data sources including Nasa, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Data automatically update and follow the Earth’s climate trajectory, providing a visual representation of the climate crisis.
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Rescuing Nature – Inkcap is a newsletter about nature, ecology and conservation in the UK. It focuses on nature, how we are destroying it, and how we can protect it. Themes include rewilding, rivers, farming, oceans, forests, soil, people, culture, and more. Part of its rationale is that as so much environmental journalism focuses on the international picture, we forget, sometimes, about the catastrophic loss of habitats and biodiversity in our own country. To have any credibility abroad, it says, we need to demand accountability at home. You can subscribe here.
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Rewilding Royalty – WildCard is a new campaign group with a goal to rewild half the UK, starting with land owned by the Royal Family, the Church of England, and Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The group plans to launch with an open letter, which is currently gathering signatures. It then plans to pressure these institutions to rethink their land management through a series of grassroots actions. The aim to rewild 50% of the UK is a long-term goal although the campaign doesn’t propose a deadline. By contrast, Rewilding Britain aims to create “core rewilding areas” across 5% of the country and the government recently pledged to protect, but not rewild, 30% of England’s land by 2030.
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The Hydrogen Economy – We recently featured a blog by Serene Esuruoso on hydrogen. Coincidentally, a recent edition of The Bottom Line on BBC Radio 4 examined the prospects for a future hydrogen economy in the UK. It examined the case for putting around 20% blue hydrogen (the sort made from natural gas) into the gas grid as a means of cutting carbon emissions. This can be done with no change to infrastructure at the point of use. Despite extending our use of gas, an advantage of doing this is that our gas grid is better at responding to sudden surges in demand for heat and power than the electricity grid is. The programme illustrated the choices we shall be faced with as we continue to shift to renewables. This is a programme every student in years 10 to 13 would benefit from listening to.
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Changing Climate Course – UK universities are beginning to offer degree courses in Climate Change. Students began a BSc this year at Liverpool John Moores University. In 2021, Greenwich University will begin, and Northampton University will launch its degree in 2022. All decided to do this after interest from both students and employers. These are the first stand-alone courses in the UK although climate and climate change feature in many degree programmes across the sector.
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Egretta gazzetta – The UK now has at least three kinds of egret: the common little egret, the increasingly seen great white egret, and the still rare western cattle egret. Much more detail at Bird Guides.
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Due Diary Dates – Earth Day – 22 April Outdoor Classroom Day – 20 May World Bee Day – 20 May Walk to School Week – 17-21 May World Environment Day – 5 June Oceans Day – 8 June Clean Air Day – 17 June.
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Farming Today – What was the best environment-themed April Fool joke this year? A strong candidate must come from the consistently informative BBC Radio 4 programme, Farming Today. But was it the feature on the new countryside code with its injunction for us to say “hello” and be nice and respectful to each other? Or was it the story about hard-pressed farmers having to deal with the new rural menace of feral robotic lawn mowers? Or both, maybe? You’ll have to listen to decide.