March 2017

The UK's National Commission for UNESCO has published a series of case studies on ESD:  Good practice in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the UK: Case Studies. The Introduction says: "Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is described by UNESCO as...

I wrote the other day about UNESCOs latest and rather surreal publication on learning outcomes. The whole thing is couched in the language of competencies, as is rather too-Germanic for my taste (that is not a political judgement).  This seems...

The details of the Trump administration's proposals around environmental protection (and education) are becoming clear.  This is what the Executive Director of the North American Association for Environmental Education [NAAEE] had to say to its members last week: Dear Friends:...

I've been trying to take seriously UNESCO's latest output on the Sustainable Development Goals, but it's hard going. UNESCO says that its new publication, "Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives, targets policy-makers, curriculum developers and educators, and that it contains learning...

The NAEE blog, on March 16th and March 24th, carried stories about rivers getting legal status as people.  The rivers in question were the Whanganui river in New Zealand and the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. The March 24th post cited an Economist feature on...

News came the other day of a day-long workshop for WEEC participants on the question of what environmental education is, should be, and either might or must become.  Such a "is, should be, and either might or must become" confection can only have been dreamt...

Balance / balanced is one of those ideas that everyone seems to understand, and the word can conjure up an image: maybe of a seesaw, or a pair of weighing scales.  In one sense, it's obvious how these work, but that's only because we have an understanding...

I've been reading a piece by Paul Kingsnorth in The Guardian.  It's a reflection on environmentalism in an age of globalisation, and begins thus: "Last June, I voted to leave the European Union. I wasn’t an anti-EU fanatic but I...

Debra has funded two new projects: 1. Barriers to children visiting green spaces (Childhood Gateway Project) There is a substantial and growing body of evidence regarding the benefits of spending time in and connecting to nature.  However, the evidence also...

... Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret Never to be told, Eight for a wish, Nine for a kiss, Ten for a bird You must not miss. Magpies that is. I saw at the weekend that we...