70% of teachers – A research report has been published detailing what UK teachers think about the current state and future of climate education. It was commissioned by Teach the Future. Its headline finding is that 70% of teachers feel they have not received adequate training to educate students on climate change, on its implications for the environment and societies around the world, and on how these implications can be addressed. And the key message is that to fully embed climate within the curriculum we need all teachers to be trained to talk about the climate crisis in a way that’s relevant to their subject and their students’ lives. If you missed the launch event, you can see and share a recording on YouTube.
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Podcast of the week 1 – Elizabeth Kitchenside, a year 13 student from Woking College, and NAEE President, Justin Dillon, Professor of Science and Environmental Education at Exeter, share a podcast to discuss the key themes emerging from the first session of the Cumberland Lodge Climate Futures: Youth Perspectives conference, whose focus was the role of education in promoting sustainability.
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Podcast of the week 2 – In an episode of the Oxfordshire Teacher Training podcast, NAEE Fellow Ben Ballin sits down with Matthew Coatsworth to explore climate education. Ben talks about a message of hope and opportunity, with many recommendations for how to tackle ‘difficult’ questions and where to find reliable and age-appropriate resources.
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“Education has Failed” – Last week’s NAEE blog was written by NAEE President, Justin Dillon, Professor of Science and Environmental Education at the University of Exeter. Justin explored why education has failed and what we need to do. Here’s a reminder: “I would argue that the pandemic has provided a sad moment of opportunity. There is a compelling argument that education has failed spectacularly. After years of schooling many of the population don’t know how viruses work or how to protect themselves from their effects. The government has had to pay for commercials explaining how to wash your hands, and far too many people do not know how to tell truth from lies. … While COVID-19 dominates our immediate and short-term thinking, climate change continues unabated. Here too, there is incontrovertible evidence that education has failed to equip people with the knowledge, skills and commitment necessary to address the challenges we face. Young people around the world have been taking to the streets in protest at the lack of action and the lack of adequate climate change education.” Our next blog is by Paul Steer, Head of Policy at OCR who writes in response to an earlier post on these pages by Melissa Glackin.
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A New Understanding of Global Issues – Walk the Global Walk through Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is an EU-funded programme that mobilises young people as catalysts for transformational change, localises the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is an innovative educational model addressing complexities of the current global agenda. It says that this transferrable and pioneering model is capable of integrating a new understanding of global issues related to migration, climate change and gender equality. There’s more detail here.
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Green Apprenticeships – SOS-UK and Friends of the Earth have a new report out on green skills, here. It calls for a big investment in 250,000 green apprenticeships, as well as a few things from the Teach the Future wish list, such as funded centres of excellence on green skills in FE.
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Carbon Literacy Accreditation – Climate Ready Classrooms is a programme run by Keep Scotland Beautiful which sets out to help young people navigate the science behind climate change and reducing their carbon footprint. It’s a one-day accredited Carbon Literacy training course designed for young people aged 14–17 years that uses interactive activities and examples to start a conversation about climate change. Students completing the course receive carbon literacy accreditation. NAEE is currently working with Leicester City Council on a schools carbon literacy programme in the city.
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Arts, Environment and Biscuits – Green Tease is an informal events programme connecting cultural practices and environmental sustainability across Scotland. Since 2013 it has provided a platform for those interested in teasing out the links between the arts, climate change and environmental sustainability through the exchange of ideas, knowledge and practices. Green Tease events are equally open to people from creative and environmental backgrounds and free to attend, with teas and biscuits provided. See their events page for details of forthcoming Green Tease activities. The next one is on Tuesday 23rd March.
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Plants on-line – Plantlife has it’s own YouTube channel where you can view some of the live talks from its Spring into Action event. Meanwhile, new research in the journal PLoS One explores how adding seaweed to cattle feed reduces the amount of methane produced. More hydrogen – not a greenhouse gas – is released.
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Ending Forest School Practitioner Loneliness – Forest School Network is aiming to become the all-in-one platform for forest school practitioners and will be available in the UK, Ireland, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. There is a monthly cost for membership.
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Fake Headlines – The Times ran this headline last week: UK halfway to hitting its carbon neutral target by 2050. The story was that an analysis of official data reveals that UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 51% against the government’s baseline for measuring progress towards net zero. There was a nice graph as well, but the headline confuses effort and distance. Given that achieving this half-way point has been possible by taking relatively straightforward steps (eg replacing coal by wind in electricity generation), with the much more difficult task of decarbonising transport and heating still to come, this is like arguing that you’re half way through the time needed for a bike ride when the second half of the distance to be covered has a 1 in 4 uphill gradient. Happily, science teachers are better informed than headline writers are about such things.
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Hotter than the Sun – For the past 50 years the reality of electricity generation from nuclear fusion has consistently been “about 20 years away”. Getting this to work is the role of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy near Oxford. Here, using the Joint European Torus (JET), atoms are fused together at temperatures of up to 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times the temperature at the centre of the sun. The process clearly works but not for very long, and currently more energy is put in than is got out; 16MW in, 24MW out, for example. But things are improving and the hope is that a new reactor in France [ ITER ] will make it a reality; in about 20 years, perhaps.
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Dying from Consumption – On May 17th 1900 to 2130, The Ecologist, Resurgence Events and LOVE IT TV bring you an evening “designed to educate, engage and entertain”. This will include video talks from a number of visionaries, plus animation from The Tree Sisters, and music videos from Mobious Loop and others. The evening will be hosted by Lulu Urquhart. As part of this George Monbiot will live stream a talk, exploring the catastrophic effect of consumption on people and planet. You can buy your ticket here.
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One impulse from a Vernal Wood – It was the Vernal Equinox last Saturday; more evidence that Spring is here. It will soon be time to walk in new-leafed woods to get some much-needed inspiration. Wordsworth, in The Tables Turned, wrote that “One impulse from a vernal wood may tell you more of man, of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can.” The key word here is “may” as nothing is guaranteed. Wordsworth went on to say (having first urged us to throw away our books and let nature be our teacher): “Come forth, and bring with you a heart that watches and receives.” A welcome role for education, then.