Ann McGuire, Baskerville School, Birmingham This project involved five Birmingham schools: one primary for hearing impaired, two all-age special schools, one secondary autistic specific school and one small group of students from a mainstream secondary boys’ school (44 students in all). We wanted to make Global Learning especially meaningful and practical to our cohort of…
Dr. Philip Ryland & Jim Mitchell write about the power of informal environmental education to create memories. Environmental interpretation is widely accepted as a process of communication which aims to deliver meaningful information in an informal, relaxed way to visitors (Benton, 2009; Brochu, 2003). The type of information provided varies considerably between sites but will…
Feargal Magee is the Head Teacher of Portadown Integrated Nursery and Primary school. He writes here with Rachel White about walking buses. Portadown Integrated Nursery and Primary School is located in the town of Portadown, County Armagh in Northern Ireland, and suffers from bad congestion, making the school run a daily battle for parents, pupils…
Joanna Lindsay is the Conservation Officer for Buglife Scotland; Laura Larkin is a Conservation Officer for Buglife. They write here about the Marvellous Mud Snails project with schools in Cornwall and Scotland. The Pond Mud Snail (Omphiscola glabra) is a modest mollusc, by all standards. With its less-than glamourous name and murky brown shell that rarely…
Lucy Mottram is Waste Education Officer for Devon County Council. She is a trained teacher with experience working in farming, ecology and sustainability in the UK, Greece and Italy. She writes here about her plastic pirates project. “So you’re a rubbish teacher!” said the young son of a dear friend when I described what I did. And,…
Victoria Hackett, an environmental education consultant, explores how environmental education and literacy can be linked in work with children. Step 1: Create signs What is the first thing you see when you walk into an outdoor classroom? Is it a welcome sign? There is nothing more inviting than a welcome sign! A welcome sign is an…
Year 3 pupils from Long Knowle Primary School in Wednesfield, Wolverhampton had an absolutely wonderful experience visiting the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. We are extremely grateful to have received the Hugh Kenrick grant which covered our entry fee to the gardens for staff and pupils, a teaching session for the class, as well as transportation costs. This…
Tabassum Fatima, Chloe Mason, Katy Harley & Sophie Steadman write about their schools’ visits to Martineau Gardens which was funded by a Kenrick bursary from NAEE. The itinerary lived up to its promise of delivering a well-rounded experience of the botanical and zoological aspects of the year 6 curriculum. The visual aids and use of the…
Emily Dyer is Education Services Coordinator at the Canal & River Trust. She co-ordinates the Trust’s education programme ‘Explorers’, developing learning resources and working with schools and groups across England and Wales. In this article, first published in Volume 119 of our journal, Environmental Education, Emily explores the work that the Trust does with local schools. The Canal &…
Lorna Hall is Education and Outreach Officer at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a charity dedicated to the protection of whales and dolphins. WDC’s vision is a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free. Their mission is to amaze people with the wonder of whales and dolphins and inspire global action to protect…
Rachel White is Senior Policy and Political Advisor at Sustrans. She writes here about the importance of walking and cycling to school. This article was first published in the latest edition [Vol 121] of NAEE’s journal Environmental Education, which is freely available to members. Not every parent and carer is able to walk or cycle with their child…
This article by Elizabeth Joy Levinson is a free download from the Autumn 2018 Green Teacher magazine. This is how it begins: RECENT RESEARCH has shown that narrative structure has a powerful impact on the human brain. Studies in neuroscience and narrative structure support this idea; some researchers are finding that narrative structures such as those used in fiction and poetry…