April 2014

  • Green Academy evaluation report No 2

    The Higher Education Academy's first Green Acdemy change programme was launched in 2011 to help higher education institutions to embed education for sustainable development (ESD) into the overall student experience.  This second evaluation report (the first was carried out in 2012)...

  • Contradictions at the heart of EAUC

    Sometimes, it’s hard to know what to make of the EAUC.   For example, it is smart enough to have persuaded the Scottish Funding Council [SFC] to part with £400k over 3 years to: “deliver support for Scottish institutions on carbon reduction...

  • Earth Day Celebration – a word from John of Gaunt

    For those who took Philip Larkin's gloomy text about the state of the country(side) too much to heart, fear not.  As AN Wilson noted in his poetry of place book, England, for Eland Books, this country has been going to the dogs from at least...

  • Earth Day Celebration – a line or two from Philip Larkin

    In 1971, Philip Larkin was commissioned to write a prologue to a UK government report, How Do You Want To Live?  This was one of the UK's papers submitted to the iconic 1972 UN Stockholm conference.   Larkin was always going to...

  • Earth Day Celebration – readings c/o Berghahn Journals

    In celebration of Earth Day, Berghahn Journals are giving free access to a special virtual issue that focuses on climate change.  It features a collection of articles from eight journals spanning multiple disciplines which deliver scholarly and informed opinion on...

  • It seems that "climate change is slowly moving from the headlines to the classroom"

    The other day, the International New York Times has a feature on (international) ESD.  It begins: "From Mauritius to Manitoba, climate change is slowly moving from the headlines to the classroom.  Schools around the world are beginning to tackle the...

  • UAE in top 5 for ESD – says British expert

    Last week’s GulfNews – essential reading I find – reported a “leading educationalist” as saying that … “The UAE is among the top five countries in the world in sustainability education, inspiring students to take part in advanced sustainability coursework...

  • Rio 2 – an EE of sorts in 3D

    Rio 2 is set in the Amazon, and I watched it over Easter with my grandchildren.  It was technically brilliant, of course, full of smart tributes to Holywood, and, appropriately for a film whose messages were so black and white,...

  • HEA soon to be free from public influence and accountability

    I wrote the other day about the steady reductions in tax-payer funding from to the Higher Education Academy [HEA] from the Higher Education Funding Council for England [Hefce].   One consequence of this is that when the funding stops entirely,...

  • New environmentalism and the circular economy

    The other day I watched EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik give a presentation on TEDx.  He was supposed to be talking about “New environmentalism and the circular economy” – but he didn’t.  The talk was full of scary data, mostly around...