Counting Bees – Defra has launched a new app to encourage the public to count bees, butterflies and other pollinators. The Flower-Insect-Timed Count (FIT Count) is a free app which asks people to spend ten minutes of their day collecting data on the number of insects that visit particular patches of flowers. The efforts are part of Defra’s new Pollinator Action Plan, which aims to spread awareness about how to help pollinators. This seems as pertinent to schools as well as to families, but it’s not clear how this fits with the DfE’s national education nature park plans.
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Tendering – A reminder that The DfE is seeking a “prestigious national lead provider (or consortia) to design and deliver the National Education Nature Park (NP) and Climate Leaders Award (CLA)”. The National Education Nature Park “will drive the increase of biodiversity on the education estate, engage young people and develop their skills in sustainability and climate change, gather more information about the education estate and provide a platform for associated high quality learning materials”. Contract Value: £4,000,000 – £5,300,000.
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Curriculum Investigation – The British Curriculum Forum aims to bring together all those with an interest in collaborative curriculum, research and development. Through events, awards and grants, the BCF supports communication and collaboration in the study and practical implementation of the curriculum in schools, colleges and wider educational settings. The Forum has announced a Curriculum Investigation Grant focusing on developing a curriculum for climate and sustainability education. The grant can be used to support research led by schools and colleges’ with a focus on curriculum inquiry and investigation. Normally, the grant is worth up to £5,000 for the winner, with £3,500 for two other grants, for a total of £12,000. The submission deadline is July 9th; details here.
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Nature Learning in Nature – “Getting Out of the Classroom and Into Nature: A Systematic Review of Nature-Specific Outdoor Learning on School Children’s Learning and Development” is a new international report into the value of outdoor learning which is nature focused. It was published in Frontiers in Public Health. The authors write: “The value of natural environments for developing children’s self-identity and social skills has been known for some time, and more recently the potential of nature-specific (i.e., excluding built environments) outdoor learning for achieving academic outcomes has been explored. Connecting children with natural spaces has been shown to benefit their physical and mental health; however, the utility of nature-specific outdoor environments as a setting for curricular and non-curricular learning has yet to be clearly established. Our aim was to undertake a narrative synthesis of international evidence of nature-specific outdoor learning and its benefits for personal and social development, wellbeing and academic progress.”
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Youths Gather – Friends of the Earth says that its forthcoming youth gathering will be a weekend filled with inspiring speakers, campaign workshops, nature walks and meeting new people passionate about climate, social and environmental justice. The meeting is for anyone aged 16-25 based in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who wants to be part of an environmental movement that is focused on being accessible and inclusive of everyone. If you have been campaigning for years, already part of a group or are newly inspired to get involved with activism, this weekend is for you. It is designed by young people for young people and the programme will be released shortly.
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Seeking Intellectual Independence – The podcast, Higher Education for Sustainable Development: promoting intellectual independence, is produced by Kerry Shepherd and based on his 2020 book: Higher Education for Sustainability: Seeking Intellectual Independence in Aotearoa New Zealand. Other podcasts about the themes in the book are also available.
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BLAKE NZ-VR – The BLAKE New Zealand (NZ) Virtual Reality (VR) programme connects young people with the marine environment and promotes ocean stewardship. Read about the BLAKE NZ-VR project in this new GEEP Case Study here c/o NAAEE.
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Global Learning – The Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a global experiment in Climate Crisis & Learning for Sustainability. This can be integrated with existing teaching resources, and sustainability articles. It is written by teachers for teachers and primary sustainability science webs.
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Voices of the Future – Treescapes is running a project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council called Voices of the Future. It is working with primary schools on weaving climate action education into the curriculum.
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The Challenge of Climate Change – The Harmony Project has started created curriculum resources with nature and sustainability at their heart. It is working with the Eden Project on learning inspired by nature and Eden’s Curriculum Plan: How will we rise to the challenge of climate change?
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One School at a Time – The Ministry of Eco Education is hosting an online launch of David Dixon’s book (Leadership for Sustainability) on June 14th
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All Change – NAEE is supporting the Woodcraft Folk in their All Change programme. This aims to educate and empower young people, youth workers and teachers in climate change education. After being interrupted during the pandemic, the project is active again and will run until the end of 2022.
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Transforming Practice – The University of Cambridge is offering an MEd module on Environmental Sustainability Education: realising strategy in school from October to December 2022. This aims to help teachers to meet the calls from young people to address climate change and sustainability. It will use the Department for Education’s new strategy on sustainability and climate change education as an example of how governments are working to address these calls following COP26 and other intergovernmental policy initiatives. Application deadline July 18th.
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FEE Report – The Foundation for Environmental Education’s 2021 annual report is now available. It begins: “2021 has once again been a year full of positive achievements and progress, in spite of the challenges we have all faced. While the COVID- 19 pandemic continued to impact both the tourism industry and global education systems, the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and its members were able to use lessons learnt from 2020 to ensure that our programmes continued in schools and hospitality establishments around the world.”