The UK Soil Observatory has a map viewer that helps you explore the soil environment where you live and puts soil maps at your fingertips. You can select from over 100 map layers contributed by a range of data providers, covering topics such as soil carbon content, moisture, texture, chemistry and geophysics. You can also search…
The Countryside Classroom was launched last week. We tried out the Places to Visit page, which says: “Countryside Classroom helps you to arrange high-quality class visits that enhance learning about food, farming and the natural environment. You can use the filters on the left of this page to help you find the perfect venue in…
Here are a few recent updates from the Soil Association: 1. In his new book, Everyday Superfood, Jamie Oliver has championed organic food. He says that rather than being an unaffordable luxury, organic is just another word for natural. See: Jamie Oliver 2. On November 5th the Soil Association will hold its 7th annual Soil Symposium. This…
The Awards for outstanding contributions to learning outside the classroom recognise some of those committed to ensuring that young people benefit from engaging and motivating learning outside the classroom. The Awards celebrate the richness of experience which LOtC offers young people, and the some of the many fantastic people involved. The shortlists for each award are here. Voting…
Do you live in West Yorkshire or Greater Manchester? If so, you can apply for two £10,000 grants to help green your neighbourhood. The grants could be used for any ‘urban forestry’ initiative such as planting street trees or creating an urban orchard. The grant is part of the TD Green Streets initiative – a partnership between Leeds’ based TD Direct Investing and…
Did you read recently that the Oxford University Press has been steadily removing (over the last few years) nature-related words from its Junior Dictionary? Examples include: acorn blackberry buttercup fern heather minnow moss sycamore willow An OUP spokesperson said the dictionaries are “designed to reflect language as it is used,…
The Soil Association is concerned that glyphosate and other chemicals may be finding their way into the bread we eat because of the spraying that is routinely done on wheat crops. It is running a #notinourbread campaign to draw attention to the potential problems. You can see what it says, and is doing, here. Here’s the…
Climate Action reports a Yale University global survey of trees. This says that there are just over three trillion trees on Earth which is eight times more than previous estimates. Yale combined ground survey data with satellite imagery giving the new total that is equivalent to about 420 trees for every person. About 43% (1.39 trillion trees), are…
Here’s the latest from Energy Live. There are stories on heat metering, energy from coffee waste, energy taxes, and what Ed Davy is up to now.
Do you think that the urgency of the threats faced by the natural world demands new ways of working because these problems are too big and too complex for any single organisation to tackle alone? Do you think that we must be open to collaboration, innovation and doing things differently – to partnerships of possibility? Do…
In partnership with Cornwall-based EGS Energy, the Eden Project has planning permission for a 3-4MW geothermal power plant on the Eden Project site, taking energy from the heat in underground granite rocks. This event invites you to hear more about our geothermal plans and how this specific project could benefit Eden’s local community, and more generally,…
Today in National Poetry Day in the UK, and here is NAEE’s offering by Thomas Hardy … Proud Songsters The thrushes sing as the sun is going, And the finches whistle in ones and pairs, And as it gets dark loud nightingales In bushes Pipe, as they can when April wears, As if…