Jane Goodall is something of a conservation superstar and I have been very fortunate to have met her, twice. She is a well-qualified zoologist and environmentalist; a trailblazer in African chimpanzees and as a woman scientist. She is 83 and still going strong, spread-ing the conservation message as she travels world-wide; she certainly draws a…
Simon King’s Nature Watch is an excellent resource on how to track and observe wildlife. It is clearly set out, with beautiful photography (as you would expect from Simon King) and illustrations, and is a highly accessible book for both beginner and exper-ienced tracker alike. The remit of the book is to give tracking signs…
London’s Street Trees : A Field Guide to the Urban Forest, is a paperback by Paul Wood. This is what The Hive has to say about it: Most people would assume that the trees along the capital’s streets are London planes. That’s what street trees are? In fact, the magnificently green streets of London are in…
Natural England’s recent update on research identified a number of books. Here is a selection: 1. Children Learning Outside the Classroom: From Birth to Eleven edited by Sue Waite. Learning outside the classroom is increasingly seen as beneficial in both early years and primary settings, and it is becoming embedded in the curriculum, but what are…
British Wildlife is an utterly brilliant collation of illustrations sure to prove irresistible to children and adults alike – it has been a constant companion to my three children since its arrival on our doormat for review! The book professes to document the wildlife of the British Isles; its poetic introduction invites the reader to…
The last part (The Path Ahead; page 122) of WWF’s 2016 Living Planet report says this: The facts and figures in this report tend to paint a challenging picture, yet there is still considerable room for optimism. If we manage to carry out critically needed transitions, the rewards will be immense. Fortunately, we are not starting…
There is a growing realisation that children benefit by being involved in ‘wild’ spaces; that so many children today grow up in a city environment – far from any ‘natural encounter’ – with youngsters who simply do not know what ‘nature’ they are missing. These are the new generation of kids experiencing ‘nature deficit disorder’,…
Why Animals Can’t Save the Planet is a compact, colourful book that shows children what they can do to “save the planet“. The book is written in rhyme and features bold, colourful illustrations of animals trying – and obviously failing – to carry out actions that are easy for humans to do: a gorilla struggling to…
NotDeadFish, a social change consultancy, recently announced a new report: Work on the Wild Side. You can download it here. This, NDF says, attempts to debunk the myth that outdoor learning and residentials are not viable teaching mechanisms. It adds: “As accountability within schools increases and budgets decrease, it is easy to see how outdoor learning can…
Meadowland was published to wide acclaim in 2015 and duly emerged as the Thwaites Wainwright prize winner for the year. Lewis-Stempel chronicles his observations of a meadow in Herefordshire month by month through the year in stunning prose, drawing the reader in to share with him his intimacy with the landscape and its wildlife. From…