Schools and Climate Change – The Battle of Ideas Festival held a session on schools and climate change on Sunday October 10th. The organisers asked: “Was it right for so many schools to accept climate strikes as legitimate, perhaps even encouraging pupils to take part? Why have young people today responded to the threat of climate change in a more anxious way than pupils in the past worried about nuclear war or AIDS? Are pupils getting a one-sided view of climate change, one that overstates the problem and downplays humanity’s capacity to cope?“
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Cantab COP – Last November the University of Cambridge launched its first global festival, dedicated to raising awareness of climate change and decarbonisation through engagement between academic and broader communities. This year it is focusing on what its communities are doing in the run-up to COP26. You can explore the festival’s events here.
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FEDSpace – The most recent FEDSpace event was on October 12th and focused on building an education curriculum for a net-zero future to ensure that future generations learn about climate change. The next is on sustainability education, creating greener schools and colleges. It’s on Tuesday October 19th . Contributors include: Mike Green, Chief Operating Officer, Department for Education who will reviewwhat we know about the state of the school estate, and Henry Greenwood, Founder, Green Schools Project who will explore helping schools become net zero. There is still time to reserve your place.
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Nature Connection for Schools – WWT have recently launched their Generation Wild programme which will connect 45,000 children and their families with nature. It includes free school visits (including free transport), free visits for families and a specially designed website to encourage continued nature-connection activity at school, at home and in local greenspaces. Children and their families will find themselves transported by a magical narrative as they meet Ava, a part-bird, part-human creature in a giant nest. Can they help her to find her family, fulfil her destiny and unlock some of nature’s wildest secrets along the way? The programme is now open to schools in disadvantaged areas, with places offered on a first-come-first-served basis. Eligibility criteria (based on % of pupils eligible for free school meals) vary across centres so please visit the Generation Wild website to find your nearest centre and see if your school qualifies.
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To a Lesser Degree – There is an 8-part climate podcast from The Economist with new episodes published every Monday. It began on 27th September and will run up to COP26. You can access it here.
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Meles meles – Our website of the week is Durham County Badgers. Founded in 1981 Durham County Badger Group exists to protect and study the Eurasian badger in its natural habitat with the purposes of ensuring its long term safety. It also educates the public about the threats the badger is subjected to from roads, persecution and land development. Its education work can be seen here.
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Send My Friend – Oxfam’s COP activities relating to young people and schools will include: The Send My Friend to School Campaign Champions will attend COP26 on November 5th. This year they are 12 UK secondary school students calling for children and schools to be more prominently featured within climate justice decision making. Twitter: @sendmyfriend. There is also a youth action guide that links to a new resource on climate justice: The Human Impact of Climate Change for 11-16s. For schools in Scotland there’s Exploring Climate Justice – focusses on the climate emergency and human rights in Scotland and Somaliland.
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TED’s Countdown – The Countdown Summit brings together hundreds of leaders in October, as TED speakers share a blueprint for a net-zero future. This plan – along with inspiring stories of local action – will be amplified by hundreds of TEDx Countdown events around the world and through a special global livestream event on October 30th. Details here.
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New Resources – Learning through Landscapes has released its first set of newly designed resources for outdoor learning, covering a range of different subjects and school phases. These have been created to ensure that the layout and composition made them as accessible as possible for educators. Here’s details of more LtL training courses.
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Imagine – At the University of Southampton’s Festival of Social Science on the 20th of November [0930 to 1200] there’s a session on Imagining a Sustainable Future via Green Stories. Attendance is free via Eventbrite. There will be an opportunity to learn about what a sustainable society might look like and how fiction can be used to communicate green solutions, help reduce our feelings of powerlessness in the face of climate change, and inspire action.
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Meat and Two Veg – Campaigners have failed in an attempt to make COP26 a vegan festival as the Cabinet Office has confirmed that meat, fish, etc will be served in the official areas. Officials said that a UNFCCC handbook on hosting COPs by the is being followed. This recommends that the menu “should include a well-balanced variety of choices of meat and vegetarian food”.
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Treedemic 1 – At least 18 new pests and diseases posing a serious threat to trees have been imported into the UK in the past 30 years, according to research by the Woodland Trust. Nick Phillips, head of conservation policy at the Trust, said that more investment was needed in tree nurseries to reduce the need for imports, which had increased over recent years.
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Treedemic 2 – Britain’s trees are being felled by diseases says a long read feature in the Economist: millions have died; millions more will. It begins: “Nobody is counting the trees Britain has lost to diseases, because it is difficult to keep track of millions of hectares of woodland. But on ash and elm, oak and beech, horse chestnut, alder and larch, diseases are spreading. Some kill. In London the leaves of horse-chestnut trees curl, brown and wither long before autumn arrives. In Devon and in Cumbria, ailing ash trees lift their skeletal silver fingers to the sky. In Dumfries and Galloway, hillsides of larch have been felled.”