Categories
Category: Resources
‘A Backwards Catastrophe’ is a BBC Radio 4 production that is part polemic, part satire, part lyrical collage.
Beautifully produced, it travels in reverse through the BBC archives to trace some of the present problems and oblique antecedents of the environmental crisis.
The programme rolls along to variations on and reversals of the appropriate Mad World melody. Highly recommended.
The best way to escape for an undisturbed hour and really appreciate the sound experience is by using head phones.
Categories
London Greenground Map
Inspired by the iconic London Tube map, a graphic designer has produced a similar map joining London’s parks and nature spots. Greenground Map “aims to change (the) perception of how we see cities, when walking and cycling longer distances become regular ways to get around.”
It’s a great idea that is likely to be adopted by other towns and cities attempting to get people out of their cars and connecting better with nature. Why not ask your students to make a similar green spaces map for where they live?
Read more here.
Categories
Climate Declaration
Congratulations to everyone involved in Mock COP 26, the virtual climate change discussions organised by young people in the absence of this year’s postponed climate talks in Glasgow. The result is the Mock COP Treaty which on education states:
14. Article 12 of the Paris Agreement commits the Parties to cooperate in scaling up and strengthening climate education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information on climate change.
15. Education on climate change and biodiversity, based on the best available science and data, needs to be made available at schools and educational establishments at every level, including informal education. School, college and university buildings and estates must lead by example on sustainability as they form the subliminal curriculum.
16. The Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action prepared in 2019 by the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative (‘CERI’), the United Nations International Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) and YOUNGO (the Children and Youth constituency to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), already signed by twelve countries, underlines the call for climate change and environmental education, and children’s rights, including the right to a healthy environment.
That is a very useful and clear statement of what needs to happen – indeed should already be happening – in education. Let’s make sure we act on it.
Categories
Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times
Do not miss this incredibly important video. It puts climate change into the context of a rapidly changing and developing world, offering hope for us all.
Categories
Bloomberg Green
Edition 2 of Bloomberg Green magazine is out now and makes for some very interesting reading.
When organisations like Amazon, Apple and Walmart move towards carbon neutrality – and have the evidence to support this – we can be sure things are changing.
Nevertheless, it’s still ‘A race against heat, and humanity is losing’ – so don’t get too comfortable.
Categories
Green your lessons
There is a wealth of material out there for people who want to bring the environment into their lessons.
But there are also things you can easily do to give your lessons an environmental twist, regardless of the syllabus. For lots of ideas, why not sign up for Language Teaching for the Planet with ELTSustainable?
Next course begins tomorrow, 22 September 2020.
Categories
Climate Crisis Survival Kit
Thank you to ELTfootprint.org for (among other things) the excellent English Teacher’s Climate Crisis Survival Kit.
It’s full of ideas for helping practising English teachers to ‘Make their lessons more focused on the climate emergency and to make their place of work greener and more sustainable.’
Find it here.
Categories
Education at the heart
This from the excellent Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine for May/June 2020: “We need a new ideology based on connection: between individuals, between institutions, and between our societies and Nature. At the heart of this is education.” Food for thought indeed.
Earth Day has produced some wonderful collections of resources for teaching about the environment. Check these out:
- TeacherVision: https://tinyurl.com/yd9bes5d
- OneSharedEarth: https://tinyurl.com/ycbt48uv
- TED-Ed Earth School: https://tinyurl.com/y8dp2fl9