Maisy Summer – The BERA Research Commission, whose purpose is to co-create with teachers and young people from across the UK, a manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability has held nine workshops receiving contributions from over 200 people resulting in the production of a Manifesto, illustrated by Maisy Summer. This will be launched at an on-line event on November 1st from 5 to 6 pm. You can sign up to the launch here A Manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability: Launch | BERA . At the launch there will be contributions from project partners and participants including: Molly Hucker, a Climate Activist from South Wales, Judy Ling Wong, Honorary President of the Black Environment Network, and Lord Jim Knight. If you would like to find out more about this work, see the Policy Briefing and A Guide for Schools.
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A Commitment to Reason – The The Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, the Minister for School Standards gave a talk at the Social Market Foundation on the importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum in raising school standards and creating a more cohesive society. You can watch it on vimeo. Gibb argued that a knowledge-based approach can deliver benefits beyond the classroom and workplace. That is, we need to teach young people a common core of facts and knowledge to stop society breaking apart: “We have a responsibility to make sure that young people are able to tell the difference between truths and falsehoods, and that the driving force of the Enlightenment – the commitment to reason and the pursuit of truth in the face of religious dogma and political bigotry – remains central to human progress in the 21st century.” There was much emphasis on history, inevitably, but if this argument carries weight, it applies to climate change and the environment as well. Not that Gibb dwelt on these of course …
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Policies for Net-Zero – Demos, WWF, the National Grid, and ScottishPower have launched a Climate Calculator which will ask people across the UK to consider how we should get on track to reach net zero. It says: “Existing policies are likely to get us half way from where we are now to where we need to be. The government knows more is needed – but what? The Climate Calculator lets us answer this question, based on the impact of different policies, not just on emissions, but also on household budgets, jobs and health. Every school could get involved with this or, failing that, active student within schools could do it themselves. It does not take long, unless you start discussing the issues. Of course, discussing the issues might be more worthwhile than filling it in; but you can do both.
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Space Tourism – The Conversation has an article by Eloise Marais at UCL on the carbon footprint of space tourism (some call it billionaire joy-riding). If we think that the c-print of a commercial jet flight is high, what are we to make of a flight c/o Branson, Musk, Bezos, et al when it’s over 100 times as bad? There’s a lot of details in the article about propellants and techniques which should engage STEM students, and enough controversy to keep a class discussion going for far longer than these trippers spent weightless.
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Following Plastic Pollution – The Countryside Classroom reports that the plastics and sustainability team at the Environment Agency have created an interactive river catchment map highlighting pathways of plastic pollution from source to sea. By clicking on specific points on the map, young people can learn how plastic pollution travels through our drains to rivers and oceans having started life as a balloon, food wrap agricultural plastics, etc. The primary schools resource pack is here and the secondary school set is here.
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Words & Pictures for Your World – Schools are invited to enter Planetary’s competition, carried out in partnership with UKSSN, supported by Global Action Plan, PPL PWR, Let’s Go Zero, and others. For more information please click here. The deadline’s been extended to 8th August and students may now enter independently or via their teachers.
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Auditing Attitudes – The SEEd Youth Attitudes to Sustainability survey is open again. You can complete it as an individual or use it as a baseline audit tool in your classroom or workplace. The results are completely anonymous, but if participants fill in the name of their school or organisation, SEEd can feed the overall results back. You can find the age appropriate surveys here. Previous reports are available here.
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CPD Video – The UK Schools Sustainability Networkis developing a 45-minute video that schools can use in whole-school INSET days or for independent use. The video will have a positive, inspiring but honest introduction (similar to the BIG Climate Teach-In for MPs) for both teaching and non-teaching staff in secondary schools. There will be coverage of the science (with AimHi), emotions (with Thoughtbox), school operations (with Let’s Go Zero) and curriculum (with NEU), as well as contributions from staff and students. It will be available on YouTube with key resources and further CPD events listed underneath by mid-August. A sample staff audit of environmental education will accompany the video for adapting for your schools’ own purposes.
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Monk’s Wood – 60 years ago, Oxford scientists allowed a 4 hectare farm field to rewild. The result is impressive. To begin: “A shrubland of thorn thickets emerged after the first ten to 15 years. Dominated by bramble and hawthorn, its seeds were dropped by thrushes and other berry-eating birds. This thicket protected seedlings of wind-blown common ash and field maple, but especially English oak, whose acorns were planted by Eurasian jays (and maybe grey squirrels too) as forgotten food caches.”
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Bio-Mining – Researchers from Coventry University have developed a new way of recycling electric vehicle (EV) batteries by recovering all metals in them using a process called bioleaching. Also known as bio-mining, this employs microbes to oxidise metals as part of their metabolism. The process has been widely used in the mining industry, where micro-organisms are used to extract valuable metals from ores. More recently, this technique has been used to clean up and recover materials from electronic waste, particularly the printed circuit boards of computers, solar panels, contaminated water and even uranium dumps.
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Sus scrofa – It seems that the world’s wild pigs pose a greater climate change risk than a million cars. This is because of their habit of disturbing soils. A study reported in Global Change Biology of the spread of wild pigs across five continents estimated that their digging released an estimated 4.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year across the globe, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars. As there is no reasoning with these animals, and education programmes are thought to be ineffective, culling is usually resorted to in order to reduce numbers. There are about 2500 of them in the UK and they can mostly be found in Devon, Wiltshire, Monmouthshire and the Forest of Dean.
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Princess Esmerelda in the News – WWF has a new podcast – marking its 60th anniversary – that is available on all streaming platforms. WWF says that if you’re curious to hear what the world’s leading voices have to say about the future of conservation, you won’t want to miss the three episodes just released. The guests include former Colombian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Juan Manuel Santos, journalist and Indigenous rights activist Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, and wildlife television presenter Malaika Vaz from India. Each episode explores a different theme – from the late Prince Philip’s approach to conservation to a Saami reindeer herder’s knowledge of the importance of Indigenous rights in conservation and Princess Esmeralda’s experience of being arrested during a climate protest in London in 2019. Although Princess Esmerelda wasn’t involved, WWF will soon be launching a series of new classroom resources and activities to support teachers throughout the new academic year. You can register your school to receive updates about this new global citizen science project.
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Maddie & Greg – A reminder that National Grid is currently running a competition in the lead up to COP26 around asking the question “If you were in charge of the country, what would you do to help look after the planet?” Competition winners will have the opportunity to be filmed explaining their vision which will then be premiered at the conference on a world stage. The competition is open until August 17th and is open to primary and secondary aged pupils. The resources and further information is here. National Grid has also sponsored a 45 minute edition of Let’s Go Live, fronted Maddie and Greg. This is aimed at families and sets out to explain electricity, the role of National Grid and the idea of Net Zero.
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Looking for Lepidoptera – The Big Butterfly Count is running to the 8th August. You can download the app and submit sightings during the Count period. You can also sign up to a free newsletter. The Count is a UK-wide survey aimed at helping assess the health of our environment simply by counting the amount and type of butterflies (and some day-flying moths) we see. It was launched in 2010 and is now the world’s biggest survey of butterflies. Over 111,500 citizen scientists took part in 2020, submitting 145,249 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths from across the UK.