January 2022

  • Climate Education Research – a response

    I made the following response at a webinar last week where the latest research c/o Teacher Tap from Teach the Future and SOS-UK was presented.  You'll be able to find the research here in a few days. "Thanks for the invitation to...

  • Parties at the DfE?

    I'd not intended to write about the latest scandal (Partygate) to overwhelm Westminster as it all seems a long way from learning and sustainability which is supposed to be the theme of the blog. However, today I found out that...

  • Climate Education Bill in Parliament

    Tomorrow, the Bill promoted by Teach the Future and sponsored by Nadia Whittome MP, will receive its Second Reading in Parliament.  Whether it is moved on to the next stage in the parliamentary process depends on a vote in the House...

  • Holy Willie's Prayer

    Holy Willie's Prayer is my favourite Burns poem.  His take no prisoners approach to Calvanism resonates today, and what a pity there isn't a Burns around to comment on Cancel culture both north and south of the border.  Today is...

  • Positive DfE Noises

    I see, thanks to the NAEE weekly round up, that the government has published the UK’s 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment.  On the website, the Minister for the School System, Baroness Barran said this: “Building a more sustainable future is...

  • Remembering Andy Stables

    My friend Andy Stables died this morning of prostate cancer.  Over many years, I knew him as a research student, a colleague, a research collaborator, a clear-minded author, and as my Head of Department at Bath.  Of late, both kind...

  • Listening for the corncrake

    I remembering walking on unimproved land along the English-side of the Solway; it would have been in the mid-1950s.  There was a rasping sound and the family friend with us said: "Listen to that; you might never hear it again"....

  • Ellie Mae O'Hagan and those Woodpeckers

    Our local great spotted woodpeckers are back visiting the garden after their autumn sabbatical, having successfully raised at least one brood last year.  Seeing a bird hanging off the fat ball cage the other day prompted the usual question: is...

  • Critiquing Net Zero Policies in Schools

    Amid all the euphoria in Glasgow during COPO26, I tried to listen to a few alternative voices.  Why?  Partly because they exist, and partly because of a number of misgivings I have about the social and economic costs of the...

  • The aims of environmental science education revisited

    As I noted the other day, the ASE is reprinting a 2010 article of mine in the 2022 edition of ASE International.  A core part of that paper was a section on The aims of environmental science education.  Here it is:...