Good grief. What a title! – The Duke of Edinburgh was not known as a champion of environmental education, mores the pity, but he was very interested in young people’s development, and in conservation (and the environment more generally). Examples were his presidency of WWF International, his support of the National Playing Fields Association (now…
Beasts at Bedtime is a very interesting, imaginative and almost magical book, that illustrates the themed wealth of children’s stories. It recognises that many of the great stories for children feature animals and it is written for all those who imagine that children also see themselves as magnificent creatures. There is a great deal of…
Stephanie West, Angela Marmont Centre, Natural History Museum Back in 2011 the House of Lords discussed the ‘Taxonomic Skills Shortage’. This followed years of discussion within natural history: our natural historians are ageing, where is the next generation, who will continue this work? Historically the UK has had a wealth of amateur and professional naturalists, able…
Today’s blog is the latest in a series from Richard Jurin who, before his retirement, ran the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, launching a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, Richard’s views are not necessarily shared by…
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…
Today’s blog is the first in a series by Ben Murphy who is a member of the University of Glasgow team co-ordinating the Scottish contribution to the Walk the Global Walk programme. The team is led by Dr Ines Alves and Dr Ria Dunkley, along with the city of Glasgow council’s international education officer Lesley Atkins. As ever with…
The Glorious Twelfth – The DfE has said that should the easing of lockdown continue to go to plan, schools can resume educational day visits from the 12th of April. DfE stresses that visits must be conducted in line with relevant coronavirus (COVID-19) secure guidelines and the regulations in place at that time. This includes…
Know Your Nature: British Wildlife sets out to introduce the reader to some of the more common flora and fauna found in and around the British Isles. Produced as a hardback board book, the contents are laid out to give a double page spread to a total of fourteen different categories of plant or animal groups.…
Guy Willcock, young environmentalist I first realised I was living in the middle of a mass annual amphibian migration when I was nine. Every February, thousands of toads, frogs and newts would make their halting way across the road outside our house, all going in one direction. Their destination was a lake just below our…
Today’s blog is by Paul Steer, Head of Policy at OCR. He writes in response to an earlier blog on these pages by Melissa Glackin. As ever with our blogs, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the Association. Firstly, I’d like to thank Melissa Glackin for engaging with OCR’s proposals for a Natural History GCSE,…