#548: Remote and face to face - the support we'll need

When the specification is (finally) released, along with SAMs and other support materials and guidance there will be a year or so to prepare teachers to teach the new specification. 

This will require them to upskill themselves (and I include myself in that).

Official and 'unofficial' support and textbooks and other material will start to appear, and the various organisations who have been involved so far will no doubt have their own idea.

There are already some organisations offering free online training - here are a few examples from November 2023 for example, from different organisations... they will of course be offering many more in the years to come...

On 16th Nov at 1:45pm, tune into our next STEM Live lesson, 'How to Classify a Sea Monster', brought to you by @LinneanSociety.

Here you'll learn how to study life in the wild, name living organisms and even draw imaginary creatures!

Sign up here: https://t.co/QgnSkAKaDv pic.twitter.com/5wqw1qw48q

— STEMLiveLessons (@STEMLiveLessons) October 24, 2023

Ever wondered what life is like on a historic estate? Join us @unisouthampton to hear from the team at Beaulieu Estate.

📍Southampton, 8 November 👉 https://t.co/W5TjyAusuK pic.twitter.com/GV4iIph7tI

— Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (@RGS_IBG) October 26, 2023

What do you think will be the most useful types of support that teachers and schools that decide to offer the new specification will need to be provided with - whether by the awarding body or external bodies including publishers, subject associations, charities etc.

#547: Horizon

Horizon was Barry Lopez' penultimate book, and a substantial piece of work which showed his particular love of the world, and his way of describing it. 

There is a review of the book here, by Robert MacFarlane.

MacFarlane met Barry a number of times, and has written about this, and there are videos available on YouTube of them discussing Barry's life and work.

Horizon remains one of the finest descriptions of the slow change that has taken place within the life times of those of us over the age of 50. Communicating the likely changes that will take place in the next 50 years while remaining positive is the difficult thing...

#546: RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

This takes place this coming weekend.

Make sure that you take part in this huge citizen science event. Just give up an hour of your weekend to sit there with a cup of tea and see which birds land in your garden.

At the time of posting around 400 000 people / families have registered to take part.

Come and join us!

#545: Natural History Reading List #24: 'Shifting Sands'

The subtitle of the book is 'A Human History of the Sahara' and the author has personal experience of living in the region, whose name comes from some local terms.

It's one of the best books I read last year.

The indigenous populations would never use the term 'Sahara', as they refer to smaller sub-regions with which they are familiar. They will generally have quite specialist knowledge of particular areas and the routes between trading posts.

They used words that described the empty, dangerous, inhospitable nature of the region, some of which were then appropriated for the actual place names for desert areas

There is also plenty of insight. Jay Owens' book 'Dust' has previously explored the many geographical aspects that can be obtained from exploring the desert sands.

A large part of the desert is made of hamada or desert pavement, or stony ground, and sand dunes are relatively rare.

The Natural History of deserts will not be a main area of the GCSE Natural History, which will focus particularly on UK based ecosystems and nature, but the way that nature can survive and people can thrive in such challenging environments is worth exploring. 

The other aspect of the book is that the desert hasn't always been a desert - it used to be woodland, but climate change resulted in a change in the landscape of the whole region.

This book has been really fascinating and increased my knowledge of deserts a great deal. It is the additional human context which has made all the difference, and the way that it is put together is authentic and authoritative.

There is plenty on the desert as it is today, and its challenges.

My copy was published by Profile Books in 2025.

Hardback,  374pp

ISBN: 987-1-788166454

An audiobook preview is here. Those with Spotify Premium can listen to the book too.

This area is one where once again indigenous knowledge is coming to the fore.

#544: 3-30-300

A framework for nature I came across via a map activity shared by Bob Lang.

It's an evidence-based guideline for how to integrate nature into cities so people actually benefit from trees and green spaces.

The rule of thumb provides clear criteria for the minimum provision of urban trees in our urban communities by setting the following three minimum requirements:

• 3 mature trees from every home
• 30 percent tree canopy cover in every neighbourhood
• 300 metres from the nearest high-quality public park or other green space

Simple. Measurable. Backed by research showing that proximity to nature reduces stress, improves mood, and has genuine health benefits.

How does your neighbourhood score on this measure?

I can see a great many more than 3 mature trees frm my home and am less than 100 metres from green spaces. 

Not sure of the overall tree canopy cover, but it's fairly high... 

Image: Holkham Meals - Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license.

#543: Local case study suggestions: Wendling Beck, Norfolk

Wendling Beck is in Norfolk - my home county. It has undergone some regeneration recently. This video explores this idea of regenerating riparian environments.

#542: Natural History GCSE - why offer it?

There was a consultation before the long hiatus in the development of the GCSE Specification which will need to be approved by OFQUAL and go to consultation again.

These were some of the responses to the questionnaire back then...

I wonder whether these have changed in the intervening years...

#541: Nature - by Royal appointment

Catherine: the Princess of Wales has shared the 4th in a series of videos as part of her personal journey with cancer, and sharing the power of Nature. 

It is called Mother Nature.

Here are the 4 videos so far:

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

#540: A thorny problem

Kenya's Samburu county has marginal land which is prone to desertification. 

To try to keep it in place, they decided to introduce a thorny tree called mathenge (also known as mesquite).

This article looks at what happened next.

Mathenge was planted... and got a little out of control.

#539: Wild London - New Year's Day

Why not welcome 2026 in with the calming tones of Sir David Attenborough.

1st of January, BBC One at 6.30pm - Wild London

Description from the BBC.

After a life spent travelling the globe, the world’s most famous naturalist turns his attention closer to home to explore the wildlife of England’s iconic capital. Having lived in London for 75 years, Sir David has an intimate knowledge of the city’s natural history, and there's no better guide to introduce us to its most spectacular wildlife secrets.

London is considered the greenest major city in the world, with a surprising variety of animal dramas playing out in the most unexpected places. Whether it’s herds of deer invading gardens, pigeons commuting by tube, snakes slithering along Regent's Canal, parakeets raiding green spaces, or seagulls learning new ways to make a killing in the city, Sir David reveals the incredible wild encounters to be experienced across his hometown.

Sir David celebrates the extraordinary ways in which animals are adapting to survive in the urban jungle, whether it be the fortunes of a pair of peregrines nesting on the Houses of Parliament as their chicks attempt their first flight, or a family of foxes living in the heart of Tottenham struggling to get to grips with fierce rivals and dangerous streets. He is inspired as he learns how people across the capital are ensuring some of Britain’s most-loved species can continue to call London home, and he even joins efforts to bring back animals that have disappeared from the city.

Captured over his centennial year, this personal and poignant film is a timely insight into how cities can become homes for wildlife as well as ourselves.

#538: Barry Lopez - external and internal landscapes

From the classic 'Crossing Open Ground'

“I think of two landscapes- one outside the self, the other within. 

The external landscape is the one we see-not only the line and color of the land and its shading at different times of the day, but also its plants and animals in season, its weather, its geology… If you walk up, say, a dry arroyo in the Sonoran Desert you will feel a mounding and rolling of sand and silt beneath your foot that is distinctive. You will anticipate the crumbling of the sedimentary earth in the arroyo bank as your hand reaches out, and in that tangible evidence you will sense the history of water in the region. Perhaps a black-throated sparrow lands in a paloverde bush… the smell of the creosote bush….all elements of the land, and what I mean by “the landscape.”

The second landscape I think of is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape. Relationships in the exterior landscape include those that are named and discernible, such as the nitrogen cycle, or a vertical sequence of Ordovician limestone, and others that are uncodified or ineffable, such as winter light falling on a particular kind of granite, or the effect of humidity on the frequency of a blackpoll warbler’s burst of song….the shape and character of these relationships in a person’s thinking, I believe, are deeply influenced by where on this earth one goes, what one touches, the patterns one observes in nature- the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city, where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of a falling leaf, are known. These thoughts are arranged, further, according to the thread of one’s moral, intellectual, and spiritual development. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes."

I have this same edition.

#537: A year of Environmental lunacy

Lovely to see Sharon Witt and Helen Clarke bringing NAEE's Year of Environmental Lunacy blog project to a close with their suggestion of the Murmuring Moon for December.

Some lovely suggestions here for finding out more about this moon, to go with the other contributions through the year.

I was delighted to provide the suggestion for August's Sturgeon Moon to 'replace it' with the Thistledown Moon.

#536: Beach Pebble Guide

Came across a cracking little guide to the pebbles on the beaches of Scotland (in particular) by the Scottish Geology Trust.

It's a free PDF download from this link.

Scottish Geology Trust ©2021 This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. 

#535: Mendip National Nature Reserve

Those teaching in or near to Somerset gained another possible option for field visits following the 2023 announcement that Mendip became a National Nature Reserve.

Mendip in #Somerset is our newest ‘super’ #NationalNatureReserve 🎉

Home to a vibrant landscape and nationally endangered species such as horseshoe #bats, this 1,400 hectare #NNR will boost #NatureRecovery whilst connecting people to nature.

Read more: https://t.co/Au8d4RFbgC pic.twitter.com/4dSgNu5eSi

— Natural England (@NaturalEngland) October 19, 2023

 Mendip is a place that I have visited a few times over the years.

#534: Where the streets have... bird's names

A cross posting from my LivingGeography blog.

There is a quote attributed to the American columnist Bill Vaughn, which is that:

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."

This piece in the weekend's Guardian suggests that more streets are now named after birds than before, even while bird species are declining in numbers.

Developers know that such names are popular.

From the article:

The 2023 State of Nature report called the UK “one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth”, and wild bird numbers have plummeted since the 1970s.

The RSPB study also found that “meadow” in street names had risen by 34%, though wildflower meadows are down 97% since the 1930s.

The RSPB called for the government to do more to support nature, with the planning and infrastructure bill for England entering its final stages. In October it reneged on backing an amendment to the bill calling for swift bricks to be installed in every new home. Swift road names have grown by 58%.

There's a connection here with something I did for Mission:Explore in 2012. I worked to produce a special activity pack to encourage people to ride on the buses in Lowestoft. This picture shows some of the final product, and a bird-watching trip around one of the estates on the edge of town. We were featured in the local paper.

There was also a quote in the piece from the author Michael Warren who wrote the book 'The Cuckoo's Lea' about the presence of bird's names in culture and landscape.

"We love a nature name and developers know it. But the trend for birds in new-build place names masks the severe detachment many of us suffer from nature, while making it seem like everything is OK.”

#533: Nature (dis)connection

Stencil art in an alleway by Norwich market.

Image by Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#532: Lichens: a Curious Geographer Podcast

A really useful podcast recorded and shared by Ellie, the Curious Geographer.

Stones might seem lifeless — but what if they’re not? All around us, from monuments to buildings, stones are quietly alive, inhabited and transformed by lichens. As these organisms grow, they merge with the stone itself, blurring the line between what is living (biotic) and what is not (abiotic). 

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Nicholas Carter, biogeomorphologist and Lecturer & Subject Lead in Geography at Christ Church College, University of Oxford, to explore what lichens are, how they interact with stone and challenge the way we understand the world around us. 

This interview is ideal for A Level and GCSE Geography students, especially those studying Ecosystems and Geomorphology (including coasts) — and for anyone fascinated by the hidden connections between organisms, place, and environment.

Also would be a great resource for the new GCSE Natural History - I'm assuming lichens will be one of the things explored in the specification and possibly assessments.

#531: Palaeontology

Or without the 'a' in American sources... such as the one referenced here...

This University of Berkeley classification is useful in showing the different sub-disciplines.

Paleontology is traditionally divided into various sub-disciplines:

Micropaleontology: Study of generally microscopic fossils, regardless of the group to which they belong.

Paleobotany: Study of fossil plants; traditionally includes the study of fossil algae and fungi in addition to land plants.

Palynology: Study of pollen and spores, both living and fossil, produced by land plants and protists - this is very important in climate change research for reconstructing past climates from lake bed sediments etc.

Invertebrate Paleontology: Study of invertebrate animal fossils, such as mollusks, echinoderms, and others.

Vertebrate Paleontology: Study of vertebrate fossils, from primitive fishes to mammals.

Human Paleontology (Paleoanthropology): The study of prehistoric human and proto-human fossils.

Taphonomy: Study of the processes of decay, preservation, and the formation of fossils in general.

Ichnology: Study of fossil tracks, trails, and footprints.

Paleoecology: Study of the ecology and climate of the past, as revealed both by fossils and by other methods.

In short, palaeontology is the study of what fossils tell us about the ecologies of the past, about evolution, and about our place, as humans, in the world. Palaeontology incorporates knowledge from biology, geology, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, and even computer science to understand the processes that have led to the origination and eventual destruction of the different types of organisms since life arose.

A useful summary, and elements of these sub-disciplines would I imagine be included in any draft specification once it emerges.

Image: Fossil from Staithes cliffs, North Yorkshire - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.

#530: Published on this day

In 1859, Charles Darwin's landmark book 'On the Origin of Species' was first published. 

The work is one of the foundations of evolutionary biology, and one of the most important scientific works of the 19th century.

#529: NHBS: the place for Christmas gifts for the Natural Historian in your life

NHBS started out as the Natural History Book Service.

These days they sell a wide range of equipment and resources for those interested in wildlife and natural history. whether that's books, binoculars or bird boxes... and that's just the B's....

The perfect place to buy Christmas gifts for nature lovers... give Amazon a miss this Christmas...