The four Oxford Cheney school students, whose on-line petition calls for climate change to be made a core part of the national curriculum and for sustainability to be made a serious concern within the education system are asking for: The ecological and climate crisis to be made an educational priority Well founded, evidence based training for teachers so…
Here’s a link to the latest research digest from the Children & Nature Network. The work reported is: Attention Restoration Green Schoolyards & Surrounding Greenness Link between Childhood Experiences and Adults’ Connectedness to Nature Research Tools Social-Emotional Benefits Special Needs Here’s more detail on two of these: Natural environments near schools are positively linked to the…
This is an account of the visit in January by a Year 5 group from Kings Norton Primary School to Birmingham Botanical Gardens & Glasshouses as part of NAEE’s Hugh Kenrick Days bursary scheme. It’s written by class teacher Mr K Lees. Prior to visiting the Botanical gardens, Year 5 had been studying the topic ‘Our Local Area’. During…
A motion at the NAHT conference seeking support for climate change lessons in schools was passed unanimously. This adds to pressure for change and mirrors the motion passed by the NEU conference at Easter (full details here). We will report back on what happens as a result. The Young Environmental Project is a new competition…
Today’s post is from Ben Ballin, the chair of the West Midlands Sustainable Schools Network [@wmsussch ]. He is an NAEE Fellow and writes here in a personal capacity Young people are on the march against climate change, inspired by the Swedish climate striker Greta Thunberg and her accusation that older generations are “stealing their future…
If you click here, you will find the petition by Izzy Lewis, Kamila Chamcham, Rasha Alsouleman and Lucy Gibbons from Cheney School on change.org who are deeply concerned about the damage we’re doing to our planet and how it will affect our futures. They say that climate change is the biggest issue of our time,…
Today’s blog is by Graham Frost, headteacher of Robert Ferguson Primary School in Carlisle. Graham blogs at: cumbriahead.wordpress.com and this post is reproduced here with his permission. You can follow Graham @GrahamFrost Educators should give young people knowledge and understanding about climate change, but then allow them to speak out about it. School leaders have a…
Just before Easter, school children in Cumbria came together for a climate change summit. It was held at the University of Cumbria and organised by Robert Ferguson Primary School in Carlisle. Thirty schools attended the summit which was an opportunity to hear what young people are concerned about, and what they think businesses, local councils and…
Here’s the full text of the letter sent by Teachers for Climate Truth (part of XR) to the DfE: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told us last October that we have 12 years to radically change every aspect of society if we are to avoid disaster. Highly regarded scientists, like Peter Wadhams, have highlighted…
Today is Earth Day. On April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets to protest about the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development. Earth Day is now a global event and probably more than 1 billion people in 192 countries will take part this year. It’s a day of political action and civic…
Today’s blog is by Rachel Cook a PhD student at King’s College, London who volunteers with the Lambeth Natural Thinkers project and with LEEF, the London Environmental Educators’ Forum. It is an interesting paradox that no one speaks more loudly than young people when they have been persistently silenced. Thanks to young peoples’ direct action to demand greater environmental action from the…
Click here to here what the NUS said to Ofsted about its new inspection framework. This was a key point: “Given the environmental and sustainability is popular with students, we see it as enriching the curriculum, and something that positively contributes to student achievement.” As far as we can see, only NAEE is calling on Ofsted to do the…