1. London National Park City – a consultation. In this you can indicate how you might help to shape or benefit from the future programme of activities for London National Park City. You can respond as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation.
The consultation closes 15th September.
2. Bee-eaters are very rare breeders in the UK, but this year they’ve been in East Leake quarry, Nottinghamshire, and they have successfully hatched chicks – only the third time this has happened in the last 10 years. Almost 10,000 people came to see them.
3. NAAEE has published a Climate Choices High School Teacher Guide in its Environmental Issues Forum (EIF) which is designed to promote meaningful, productive deliberation about difficult issues that affect the environment and communities.
This guide provides an introduction to Climate Choices: How Should We Meet the Challenges of a Warming Planet? Using Climate Choices offers an opportunity for teachers and students to use a deliberative process to consider our climate choices. This resource provides background information on deliberation, how to use Climate Choices in the classroom, and material to help teachers moderate a forum with students. It also includes resources on teaching about climate change issues. For more about Environmental Issues Forums (EIF), click here.
4. There’s news of a short course designed for educators and anyone who’d like to teach children and young people about the Sustainable Development Goals. It is intended to support the teaching of the World’s Largest Lesson and all other efforts to educate and engage children and young people so that they support the Sustainable Development Goals and want to turn their support into action. The course supports teaching in both formal and informal learning settings.
5. The publishers say that The Really Useful Book of Secondary Science Experiments presents 101 exciting, ‘real-world’ science experiments that can be confidently carried out by any KS3 science teacher in a secondary school classroom. It offers a mix of classic experiments together with fresh ideas for investigations designed to engage students, help them see the relevance of science in their own lives and develop a passion for carrying out practical investigations.
Covering biology, chemistry and physics topics, each investigation is structured as a problem-solving activity, asking engaging questions such as, ‘How can fingerprints help solve a crime?’, or ‘Can we build our own volcano?’ Background science knowledge is given for each experiment, together with learning objectives, a list of materials needed, safety and technical considerations, detailed method, ideas for data collection, advice on how to adapt the investigations for different groups of students, useful questions to ask the students and suggestions for homework.
6. The latest Science Geek blog has much detail on today’s solar eclipse across North America. The Geek says that according to an article in The Atlantic, up to 7 million people will travel to see Monday’s total eclipse. They will join the 12 million who are lucky enough to see the total eclipse without needing to travel. If 7 million people do travel then it will be the biggest movement of people in human history to see a natural phenomenon.
7. And here are some Apps you will need to really appreciate the eclipse – if you’re in the USA.
8. Petecooperwildlife has recent features on re-wilding the UK and the Cornwall beaver project. Cooper is a a 23 year old naturalist, “privileged to still be obsessed with wildlife since childhood and now heading out into a career in wildlife conservation.” His specialist areas and interests lie in mammal and herptofauna ecology, captive breeding, reintroductions and ecological restoration, and the nature of conservation conflicts. He writes well and you can follow his here.