Think Global announced the winner of the 2018 Global Educator of the Year Award – Samantha Olubodun who is a primary school teacher and a Specialist Leader in education, at Meadow County Primary School, Cheshire. She works within her school and County to help pupils and teachers to better understand the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), think critically about global issues, and encourage people to act on them for a more just and sustainable world.
Heather Swainston, Director at Cheshire Development Education Centre (CDEC) who nominated her said: “Sam has done so much to help pupils understand the SDGs and for her colleagues in school and across the County to be inspired to undertake similar work.”
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NAAEE has announced a new resource involving GPS and STEM. It says that this is a …
“free hands-on activities for students with no/low costs for materials include stories, videos, presentation materials, and career highlights Four modules (Earth, Life, Space, Movement) include 12 inquiry-based lessons designed to support the new science standards and the Common Core. Scenarios highlight STEM applications in satellites, orbital space clutter, energy grids, precision agriculture, global supply chains, aviation, weather forecasting, and conservation. “IDEA” (Inquiry, Discovery, Explanation, Application) pedagogy is used with all lessons incorporating real-time and archived data analysis, online simulations, modeling, and the application of geometry and mathematics.”
A new set of resources for teaching environmental issues has also been published by NAAEE. They were chosen by environmental education experts in specific subject areas. You can find out more here.
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The 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy says that the proportion that coal contributes to electricity generation has not changed since 1995. It was 38% then, and it still is although there has been some small fluctuations over the period. The proportion of gas has increased (with oil much reduced) and together they contribute some 27% of electricity generation fuels. Renewables (mostly wind) have increased and now contribute some 9% of electricity production. Coal’s continued use is because of policy and practice in China and India.
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LEEF is planning an Environmental Storytelling training day at the Geffrye Museum on Monday 12th November 2018, 10am-4pm. If you’re interested in how to better engage audiences through performance, voice, posture, storytelling, etc then this is the training for you! LEEF is looking for one more LEEFer to present, so if you have drama or performance skills you’d be willing to share then get in touch says join it for a training evening at dusk on Clapham Common, with Dr Iain Boulton, LEEF Chair, and Julia Hanmer, previously Bat Conservation Trust. Highlights are:
- Learn how to use sound, light, scents, tastes and textures as learning experiences for school groups and families
- Guidance on running your own bat walk or sensory walk in nature, with tips and facts to keep people engaged
- Games and activities to teach about echo-location and animal senses
- Find out about the different types of bat detectors, and how to translate the data
- Take home practical activities and handouts for use with your groups
- Followed by LEEF drinks at the Windmill pub!
£15 LEEFers, £30 non-members. Book via Eventbrite or email leef@leef.london
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Although the ENSI secretariat has now closed, it will not disappear completely as the website with all the documents will stay available for research and teaching activities. ENSI says this about its final publication: Lessons from the ENSI Network – Past, Presence and Future
The Environment and School Initiative was an international network, offering a platform for cooperation among practitioners, researchers and policy makers in the fields of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development. Innovative environmental projects, Action Research, Quality Criteria for ESD schools, Teacher competencies for ESD and the Whole School Approach are main features that ENSI promoted throughout its lifespan. The current book gives an overview on ENSI’s history, its impact on national contexts in three continents, its ways of collaboration and the lessons learnt in thirty years of work. More than forty internationally acknowledged experts share their experience and provoke forward-looking thoughts about education, science, sensitive problems and new concepts for networking.” (Quote from the ENSI 2018 book)
Citation: Affecter, C., Varga, A. (2018): ENVIRONMENT AND SCHOOL INITIATIVES Lessons from the ENSI Network – Past, Present and Future. Publisher: Environment and School Initiatives, Vienna and Eszterhazy Karoly University, Budapest. ISBN: 978-3-200-05834-7.
There will be more on ENSI in next week’s round up.
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EAUC says have a cup of tea and an SDG in webinar series running from 24th – 28th September in Global Goals Week. There are five 15-minute webinars and each one will focus on 1 SDG and have 3 – 5 presenters. They will have 2-minute slots to talk about an initiative their institution or organisation has taken that contributes towards that goal. You can book your place here.
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Communicate is the UK’s conference [23 / 24 October] for environmental communicators, with two days of discussion, debate, practical tools and briefing sessions. This year, the theme is The Art of the Possible, as befits a time of never-ending change, and the need to find new ways of connecting people and the environment. You can read this blog by CEO Savita Willmott, on how the theme was developed through our national consultation. You can book a place here.
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London’s Natural History Museum says that for centuries, scientists and artists have embarked on a succession of expeditions to document the natural world and that the observations of flora and fauna made by the artists on these voyages of natural history have contributed greatly to our understanding of nature. Until October 2019, an exhibition (whose content will rotate every four months), gives a rare opportunity to see remarkable never-before-displayed original illustrations and photographs. Exhibit highlights include:
- artworks from Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage (1768-1771), with illustrations from the Society Islands (Tahiti), Australia, New Zealand and Java, Indonesia by Sydney Parkinson, Alexander Buchan and Herman Spöring. Botanical specimens collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander are also on display. This year marks 250 years since the voyage departed England on 25 August 1768.
- interactive screens, where you can explore a variety of artworks from the Museum’s collections