Second Reading – The Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill will have its second reading in the House of Lords on July 16th. This aims to “make provision in the national curriculum regarding sustainable citizenship and protection of the environment.” You can track its progress here. At second reading, the member responsible for the Bill opens the debate, and any member can speak. This will be followed by the committee stage when a detailed line by line examination and discussion of amendments can take place. We’ll provide more detail nearer the time. Given that this is not a government Bill, its chances of success cannot be high and it could be that it is these debates that are the most important aspects of its passage within parliament.
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Awareness of Sustainable Development – Writing for the GA, Victoria Grimshaw describes an enquiry-based approach to sustainable development through a range of activities planned to engage and enlighten pupils. This article relays not only how the pupils were empowered to consider what actions to take but also how Victoria decided to take on enquiry-based learning as a model for critical and deep learning. You can access the article here.
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What’s it all About? – The Big Change Charitable Trust is holding a national campaign to get people talking about what education is really for and how it should change for the future. It calls this a Big Education Conversation. You can read more about the charity here.
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Inspiring all Teachers – The first London National Park City Schools online TeachMeet takes place on July 1st [ 3.45 to 5.15 ] as part of London Climate Week. This is a chance for teachers, school leaders, and organisations that support them in getting outdoors to meet, share knowledge, share plans, hear some inspirational speakers and take part in speed-planning, creating mini outdoor missions to inspire all teachers to get outdoors. The event is for London schools though all are welcome. Zero Carbon Education – Ashden is hosting two meetings at London Climate Action Week on Becoming a Zero Carbon School – Tuesday June 29th [ 4.30 to 5.15 ] and Thursday July 1st [ 4.30 to 5.15 ] There are also sessions on: Mobilising Global Climate Movements Engaging Communities on Climate Action and Climate Photography.
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Fair Wild – This is Fair-Wild Week. It’s about celebrating the wild plants in our daily routines, and about working to build a sustainable future for wild plants, and the people who depend on them. There’s more detail here.
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Viper’s-grass – Plantlife’s Magnificent Meadows Cymru project has partnered with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, the North Wales Wildlife Trust, Ysbyty Gwynedd, and others to restore and reconnect people to a beautiful and threatened landscape. Plantlife’s meadow health routes are part of a three-year project to increase the extent and resilience of Welsh meadows and species-rich grassland. Wales’ meadows are in serious decline, with 91% of species-rich meadow lost in living memory, but it is still home to 40% of the UK’s semi-natural grassland, and remaining fragments are under threat putting at risk some of Wales’ most beautiful and important wild flowers such as Greater Butterfly orchid and Viper’s-grass.
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IIED is 50 – Like NAEE, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is 50 years old this year. In a new blog, IIED director Andrew Norton links the founder’s vision with the urgent global crises of today and finds new hope for change in locally-led social movements. You can read IIED’s latest newsletter here.
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Land Protection – The Global Deal for Nature is a proposal that calls for at least 30% of lands to be protected by 2030 with an additional 20% in areas termed climate stabilisation areas. It is the first global plan to include land, freshwater, and marine ecoregions. Click here to see Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs and Research at Bioneers, interview Dr. Carly Vynne, one of the proposal’s co-authors, about the plan and the experiences that led her to focusing on natural conservation.
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Physics, Politics and Economics – It’s good to come across a video of a rare discussion about how the coming shift to net-zero domestic heating is to be funded. The average cost of changing a gas boiler to an air-source heat pump is said to be around £10,000. But who’s going to pay this? Click here to listen to the Chancellor of the Exchequer attempting to answer the question. It starts 13 minutes 20 seconds into the interview and lasts for around 6 minutes. There is much in this to engage students’ interest, and learning.
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Climate Change Actions – On June 16th the Committee on Climate Change published its latest assessment of the risks and opportunities for the UK from climate change, as required by the Climate Change Act. It provides an independent overview of the impacts of climate change in the UK and will inform the UK Government’s own assessment and adaptation action plans. On June 24th there’s a presentation of the report to parliament. You can register to attend this here.
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A False Dichotomy – An Our World in Data article says that the two big sources of greenhouse gas emissions are energy and food production, and that it’s sometimes argued that we should focus on one or the other. However, the article says, just as we cannot address climate change without moving away from fossil fuels, equally, we cannot reach climate targets without tackling global food production. Even if we stopped emissions from fossil fuels now, emissions from food production alone would take us well beyond the carbon budget for 1.5°C, and leave little room to reach our 2°C target. The article explores a range of options to reduce food emissions: a shift to more plant-based diets; healthy calorie consumption; less food waste; and improvements in crop yields and farming practices. If these are combined, the article says, they shift us towards a global food system that is more productive, has a low climate impact, and provides a healthy, nutritious diet for everyone.
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Vegan Spider Silk – In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Cambridge academics describe their use of plant protein to create something to mimic the molecular properties of spider silk, one of the strongest natural materials that exists. What they term vegan spider silk can be used to make bags, films and other material. More detail here.
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Making a Difference – AimHi’s Climate and Nature Course : Everything you need to know about climate, nature and how to make a difference is running again from 12th July. Its mission to make world-class climate education accessible on a global scale and the course has reached people in 156 countries so far. You can find out more through Instagram Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn