Facing up to Climate Reality

Facing up to Climate Reality: honesty, disaster and hope is the sequel to an earlier 2014 collection of essays: The Post-Growth Project. The book’s task as set out in a Foreword is to “confront the brutal reality of the long-term climate damage that [economic] growth has already made inevitable.  Honesty about this situation is something…

Are UK teachers really less trusted than social media on climate change?

Yesterday the TES website had a feature on a survey carried out by Cambridge International Assessment (an exam board), as part of Global Perspectives Week.  About 11,000 students aged 13-19 responded; 800 were from the UK.  The TES reported that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are seen as more trustworthy than teachers on global issues such as climate change and poverty.…

March 2nd 2020

Would you like to sign an open letter about the Teach the Future campaign which NAEE is supporting?   There is still time to do this.  It’s being organised by  NUS / SOS-UK.  This link takes you to the letter.  All you have to do is to add your details, wait until it says “saved” in the blue bar,…

Long Knowle Primary School visits Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Year 3 pupils from Long Knowle Primary School in Wednesfield, Wolverhampton had an absolutely wonderful experience visiting the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  We are extremely grateful to have received the Hugh Kenrick grant which covered our entry fee to the gardens for staff and pupils, a teaching session for the class, as well as transportation costs. This…

February 24th 2020

The Teach the Future parliamentary reception is taking place this Wednesday on  February 26th.  It’s sponsored (and will be introduced) by Nadia Whittome (the youngest MP, aged 24). The purpose of the event is to make the case for education to be at the centre of the Government’s climate change plans.  There will be about 50 young people…

DfE in Denial

Ahead of next week’s parliamentary reception to promote attempts by Teach the Future to increase the effectiveness of climate change education,  the Department for Education is resisting. A parliamentary question [ #4444 ] was asked by Darren Jones (Labour: Bristol North West) “To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of…

February 17th 2020

NAEE has written to the Prime Minister to support the case being made by students for changes to school policy and practice.  This begins: “Dear Prime Minister, We are writing in support of the letter recently sent to you by Zamzam Ibrahim, President of the NUS and SOS_UK, in which she called for your personal…

Imaginative Disruptions: Creating Place and Arts-based Responses to Climate Urgency

Across Sweden, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands three collective residencies brought together an intergenerational group of people who, as Arjen Wals reports: “played, ate, (re)imagined, learned and created together” in order to design “alternative futures around a selected glocal (sic) issue”, and explore “what needs to be disrupted” to realise these imagined realities.  Wals…

February 10th 2020

The latest Beehive newsletter from the Manchester Environmental Education Network MEEN is here.  It includes stories of pupils becoming community educators, details of awards won, and information about opportunities and events to help schools in Greater Manchester become more eco-friendly. There’s also detail about the next MEEN Green Teach Meet where you are invited to share your practice and learn a…