Inquiry into Green Jobs – As we reported last week, NAEE is presenting evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into Green Jobs. Leicester City Council’s Lee Jowett, who’s an NAEE Fellow, will present oral evidence on Wednesday March 3rd in a session that starts at 1415. The event is live streamed on parliament TV here.
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A Strong Signal to the DfE – NAEE has presented written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Green Jobs inquiry calling for all school leavers to have an essential understanding of key environmental issues. We argue that, in our 21st Century economy, every job is a green job because of the environmental laws and regulations that all employers and employees now face in a routine, everyday way, and because of the moral imperatives which underpin these. But as a knowledge and understanding of environmental issues cannot be the responsibility of every employer, just as essential numeracy and literacy are not, it follows that schools need to work with their students to help them develop appropriate attitudes, knowledge, understanding and skills related to working and living as though nature mattered; and also, to help them acquire an understanding of the challenges of facing up to climate change and the other environmental problems we face. This can provide both a basis for living and working in the modern world and a foundation for employers / FE / HE to build on. This is not in itself a vocational education, but is a necessary foundation for nature-respecting, positive and fulfilling lives as workers, consumers, citizens and social actors. NAEE has urged the EAC to send a strong signal to the Department of Education that it needs to align its curriculum framework and policies towards ensuring that young people are equipped to play a constructive and significant role in our transition to a sustainable society and world. We have made our evidence available on our blog pages.
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Creating a Manifesto for EE – BERA is funding a research commission that aims to create a teacher and youth co-created manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability (EfES) from across the UK. Led by Dr Lynda Dunlop (University of York) and Dr Elizabeth Rushton (King’s College London), the commission will design five participative and inclusive online workshops involving at least 100 youth (16-18 years) and 30 teachers, drawn from across the UK. These workshops will create opportunities to share experiences of, and visions for, EfES and will be analysed to generate a manifesto for EfES. The key questions that the commission will address are: [1] What is the current context for EfES, and what do we need? [2] What can we learn from others’ experiences of EfES? [3] What could the future of EfES look like? The final manifesto will be co-authored by participants and launched in November 2021 to coincide with COP26. The manifesto – the first of its kind for the UK – and accompanying technical report will present evidence (in the form of documenting stakeholder perspectives) to inform action in policymaking, practice and research. The manifesto aims to create a stimulus for action on EfES based upon shared understandings, appreciations of difference, and tangible future actions, including proposing a strategic direction for BERA on EfES research. There’s more detail here.
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EE on BBC1 – The BBC’s Countryfile programme on Sunday March 7th will have an environmental education feature. We’re told that this will feature inspirational teachers and equally inspiring young activists. It will air on BBC1 at 1800 and Tom Heap may well be talking to someone you know as he asks whether “eco-education should be at the heart of our school system”.
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Climate Justice in Wales – Teach the Future Wales has proposed an amendment to the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill, which is being voted on, on Tuesday 2nd of March. If this passes, Teach the Future says that “we can guarantee that climate justice education becomes mandatory for all students in Wales – at every level of compulsory education”. They have created a tool that allows letters to easily be sent to Members of the Senedd and have also written some template tweets and graphics which they’d be grateful if we could share on social media pages.
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Calling Young Artists – The Children & Nature Network has announced a youth art exhibition, NatureFuture: Kids’ Visions for a Just and Nature-Filled World. CNN is inviting young people to share art, poetry, and creative writing to inspire a nature-filled future for every child. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2021. Submissions can include paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, poetry, or any other creative work that can be scanned or photographed. All submissions will be showcased in an online exhibition beginning on May 20th. More detail here.
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I I E D Review – The International Institute for Environment and development has published its annual review documenting how the institute and its partners responded to the extraordinary year of change that was 2020. The review presents eight short videos to tell the story of their continuing work for a better future for all. Click here to watch the annual review videos.
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Generation Wild Research – Cardiff University School of Psychology, in collaboration with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, has a funded PhD studentship looking at the role of children’s experiences of nature in nature connectedness, wellbeing, and environmental values and behaviour. The details are here. And Defra is inviting tenders for a project which aims to explore how the ethnic diversity of visitors to national landscapes could be increased. The invitation is published here.
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Linking with your MP – Teachers For Climate Action, and Hope For the Future, are organising an event on Friday 16th April at 1030 to bring together teachers, parents, students and their MP in an online classroom to foster relationships and build knowledge around the climate and ecological emergency. The hour-long event will see inspirational teachers and activists explore the climate crisis, our relationship with nature, lifestyle choices, climate anxiety and most importantly how education can respond.You’ll find details and joining instructions for this ambitious event here.
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Children in Permaculture Manual – Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in Education, its publishers say, is a ground-breaking book, which shines a permaculture lens to inspire child-friendly, sustainable education. It is for primary, nursery and kindergarten teachers, policy makers, permaculture designers, Forest School leaders, Scout leaders, parents, carers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and anyone else who is interested in holistic education for sustainability and resilience
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Much more Climate Research Please – How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a new book by Bill Gates published by Allen Lane. A question which is central to the book is how to square the legitimate aspirations of billions of people who’d prefer not to live in grinding poverty with the sort of environmental harms that have up to now always been a consequence of economic improvement. He notes that previous transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) have typically taken place over long periods, whereas the current transition away from fossil fuels has to be much more rapid. He calls for governments to increase funding for climate research by a factor of five within the next ten years, and urges the introduction of a realistic carbon pricing mechanism to account for the externalities that are currently hidden. Unsurprisingly, given his background, Gates sees private sector investment and innovation as essential with a key role for government in stimulating this. This is a book that might usefully find a place on the library shelves of every school or college with a sixth-form.
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94% decline of Giant Manta Rays between 2003 and 2016 – The annual report for 2020 of the Marine Megafauna Foundation has now been published. The report notes that the Foundation’s work led to giant manta rays and some of their smaller cousins being recognized as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and comments: “While that obviously isn’t good news in itself, we’ve now clearly identified the threats that these species face – and we are already implementing the conservation initiatives needed to help them rebuild their populations.”
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The Global Nitrate Time Bomb – Research has found that the nitrate fertiliser that was extensively applied throughout the last half of the 20th century to boost food production, has tended to leach quickly through soil but moves much more slowly through rocks taking a 100 years or so to reach the water table. This creates a reserve of nitrate pollution with the potential to cause future damage to our drinking water and human health, and to the ecosystems of our rivers, lakes and coastal zones, even though our current use of nitrates is much lower than it was. Most nitrate is stored in North America, China and Europe where huge quantities of fertiliser were applied for decades. In developing countries, where the problem is often not so severe, there is some evidence of a worsening situation.