A blog providing ideas and resources for those teachers hoping to / preparing to teach the new GCSE Specification announced in April 2022, for potential first teaching from 2026, depending on a number of factors.
Storms which cause flooding in homes and businesses have increased in Cumbria in the last decade.
Peatlands hold large amount of water and during periods of high rainfall they can both hold back water and also slow the flow of the water coming off the hills.
Damaged peatlands cannot hold the same amounts of water, and areas that contain drains actually speed up the flow. This means that, during high rainfall events, water isn’t held back and released slowly but flows immediately into rivers, increasing the flooding risk downstream.
Blocking drains slows this run-off and keeps floodwater on the fells for longer.
The phrase 'more than human' is one I hadn't heard until a few years ago, when I attended a session run by Sharon Witt and Helen Clarke.
More than Human Rights is an interesting concept.
I'm part of the MOTH (More-Than-Human) Rights collective, based out of @nyulaw. We've just released this book of essays, conversations & collaborations on the subject of MOTH rights & much beyond. It's free to all as a PDF/Kindle download. Pls share on. 👉https://t.co/5AqE5K7dbapic.twitter.com/in1JInOLVn
Hello: this is 'Riversong', a "broadside ballad" which protests the slow death of rivers in the UK & around the world––& sings for their revival.
'Riversong' is free to print, share, set & sing, speak aloud on a riverbank, post on walls or windows, adapt, translate, perform,… pic.twitter.com/767BzPoUll
Any school planning to offer the GCSE Natural History will probably need to purchase a range of equipment for some of the skills and fieldwork elements - if those are retained from the original consultation.
Here's the wording from the original consultation document, which is only advisory and not the final text of course. Safe use of techniques for monitoring/detecting organisms. For example: Longworth traps, moth traps, camera traps, satellite tags, methods for monitoring reptiles, using photographs, bat detectors, bird ringing, etc. Use of indirect evidence (e.g. signs, tracks, landscape analysis) Use of Identification charts
Food and farming have an impact on biodiversity and the importance of farmers as stewards of, and creators of, the British landscape is something that any GCSE in Natural History would have to tackle. The approaches are different in the different UK countries. This item from WWF Cymru from 2022 is a reminder of the impact of farming in other countries... to meet the demand from the UK...
A new addition to my library of Natural History books is the new collection from Simon Armitage. It is a lovely collection with plenty of memorable moments.
This is a book published by uniformbooks. It explores ideas of localness and sense of place.
Anticipatory history is the present day really, where we explore our landscapes and bring them to life with stories.
Here's a review from the uniformbooks website.
In brief, various authors have been given free rein to elaborate upon a number of critical terms now at work in debates about landscape, ecology, climate change and futurology, ranging from the technical to the poetical, and from the instrumental to the epiphanic. Thus we get wonderful expositions on what is meant by Adaptation, Dream-maps, Entropy, Liminality, Memory, Rewilding, and Presentism, amongst many others—in fact fifty glossaries in all. The initial brief for this research endeavour was “to explore the roles that history and story-telling play in helping us to apprehend and respond to changing landscapes, and to changes to the wildlife and plant populations they support.” The editors rightly caution themselves and their readers against the dangers of instrumentalising the history-writing process, bending a reading of the past to suit the needs of the present and the future.
Not surprisingly forms of land ownership and its management and stewardship loom large. The short essay on ‘Commons’ rehearses Garrett Hardin’s famous essay on ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, which suggested that self-interest will always ultimately defeat the social aims of things held in common. However, it doesn’t reprise historian E. P. Thompson’s counter-argument that in particular societies at particular times, a ‘moral economy’ is brought in to play to regulate private behaviour. It was also surprising—though perhaps there wasn’t enough room—that the entry on ‘Rewilding’ focused entirely on vegetative succession with no mention of the fearful ‘Beast of Bodmin Moor’, nor of the proposal to re-introduce sea-eagles to the East Anglian shoreline.
Attention also gravitates towards the newer, more problematic landscapes which now require a fuller understanding of how they might be managed in the future: the ‘edgelands’ or ‘drossscapes’ produced by failed urbanisation or de-industrialisation. Are these settings just as valuable and worth conserving as farmed or so-called natural habitat? What was once called the search for authenticity in human existential terms, now applies to concrete and clay. Here the newer discourses of psycho-geography and psycho-biogeography are proving to be invaluable in summoning meaning and history from even the bleakest terrain (on such matters see the excellent entry, ‘Liminal zone’).
There are no settled positions on any of these matters any more, as the entry on ‘Enclosure’ concludes. Once upon a time open common land was hedged in and parcelled up into private lots, which had very bad social consequences. When, a century or so later, the hedgerows were uprooted in the name of industrialised farming, much of the flora and fauna using them as habitat disappeared. Now we are re-instating hedges again. “Perhaps,” the author of this entry concludes, “we might think of enclosure as an example of the human modification of land that slips from its moorings, and accept that each generation makes the enclosure it needs.”
The book contains words, terms and concepts that are completely new to me, including the book’s suggestive title, ‘Anticipatory History’. I had not heard of Rephotography before, nor ‘Shifting baseline syndrome’ let alone ‘Palliative curation’. ‘Presentism’ I knew, but not how to pronounce it—and still don’t. Yet these elucidations are vital resources in the debates ahead about how we handle the transition from the past into the future, and provide a much-needed contribution to the crucial matter of ‘Inter-generational equity’. A terrific and thought-provoking book.
Jellyfish are likely to become more stressed as seabeds are disturbed by proposed mining of the seabed. This is one of many impacts that this will have if it is approved and goes ahead.
If and when we are able to move to the next phase of this qualification, teachers will need training and will need to look for national and local organisations offering events which will be suitable for developing our skills in the field of Natural History.
It is a Society local to where I live in Norfolk, and to a landscape which I am sure I will be using to develop some resources when we get to that stage.
They also offer a series of events... and one sounds useful which is coming up in a few weeks' time.
One for Norfolk and similar folks really due to the location...
The Broads Society has a lecture which soulds like it will be useful.
I love this image of tadpoles which has been chosen as the winner at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. It's a reminder that the winning entry hasn't got to be some obscure exotic animal shot in the Himalayas after months of lying in wait...
The composition is superb and the arrays of tadpoles seem to have been posing. A bit Klimtish too....
Details:
A snapshot of wriggling toad tadpoles has earned Shane Gross the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Beneath a floating canopy of lily pads in Cedar Lake, Canada, a swarm of western toad tadpoles glided gracefully through the water.
“To me, the most fun that I can have, the thing that lights me up inside, is to see something new and try to photograph it in the best way I possibly can,” Shane told BBC News.
His careful movements through the delicate layer of silt and algae at the lake’s bottom ensured a clear view.
“I had no idea if I had anything good at all until I got home," he said. "But when I finally looked, I was like, wow, this is pretty cool.”
Tidal pools on wave cut platforms are a wonderful location for young people to encounter a variety of wildlife which is waiting... waiting for the tide to return usually.
They are windows into a marine world, where creatures are surviving or thriving, feeding, hunting and occupying their niche.
Adam Nicolson's book 'The Sea is not made of water' describes the time when British people became fascinated with such places, during the Victorian period in the 1850s. Philip Henry Gosse, who helped raise public interest in such places described them as 'unruffled wells' and reflected earlier calmer times. We still go to the seaside for peace and reflection.
The intertidal zone is an area which will hopefully receive some attention in the specification when it finally emerges.
Tidal pools would also make an excellent location for fieldwork for those near the sea, and to also practise identification using an appropriate key, and to consider the impact of daily inundations at high tide on these little ecosystems.
There's also a Rush song which references these locations called 'Natural Science', which is of course nicely connected with the theme of Natural History.
Image: Robin Hood's Bay - shared by Alan Parkinson on Flickr under CC license
An appreciation of animal dung may be one thing that those following the GCSE Natural History have to develop. It is a particularly good method of identifying certain speces of animal. It is also a source of nutrient - in some areas such as the tundra, animal burrows can often be located by looking for clumps of flowers in the short Arctic summers.
There are going to be quite a few of these which will be of interest to those teaching GCSE Natural History and we will be producing a list of apps: one for Android and one for iPhone.
It is the result of work by Jake Fiennes and others and is kindly shared on the webpage linked to above. All country estates require careful management, and some have the extra dynamic of large numbers of visitors to manage.
The place for biodiversity depends on the decisions made by landowners and Jake has been very transparent about the way that he leaves space for nature and his book which I have a copy of: 'Land Healer' tells the full picture.
Havell, Robert, 1769-1832, A series of picturesque views of noblemen's & gentlemen's seats : with historical and descriptive accounts of each subject / , London : Published July 1, 1823 by R. Havell, Chapel Strt. Tottenham Cout Road, 1823..
Jake Fiennes is the Director of Conservation for the Holkham Estate at the moment, and I have posted separately on the blog about his book 'Land Healer'
Coastal Processes and Management – discover the impact of coastal processes has on landscape at Wells and Holkham. Learn what Shoreline Management Plans are in place and at what cost. What does the future have in store?
Stiffkey River Study – access the River Stiffkey safely and conduct fieldwork techniques to discover how fluvial processes affect velocity, depth, wetted perimeter and gradient.
Sand Dune Succession – undertake practical fieldwork collecting both abiotic and biotic data of an example of Primary Succession along a transect from embryo dunes into the pine woodland. Measurements include slope gradient, soil analysis, species diversity and abundance.
Conservation Management – with nearly a million visitors a year, how do we manage Holkham National Nature Reserve? Learn how higher level stewardship and tourism fund this unique work, protecting wildlife for future generations.
Business, Leisure and Tourism – tourism now accounts for over 70% of the estate’s income. Take a look at the operational side of the business, Holkham Enterprises, which hosts 200,000 visitors to the park each year. Marketing, catering, event management, customer service and retail are all key to this diversification success.
It's important that those who are planning on teaching the new specification start to look for examples of managing the landscape like this.
A new arrival this month was this chunky new book by Jeremy Mynott which promises to explore the story of mankind's changing relationship with nature.
This would seem to offer a scholarly perspective on many of the original ideas that underpinned the draft specification, and which I hope end up being in the final version.
I have made a start and am mightily impressed so far.
It has made me reconsider the reasons why cave paintings were made, and the way that domesticating animals changed our relationship with certain animals.
We are preparing to submit evidence and support the consultation for the new curriculum review to discuss what we hope to see in a future curriculum with respect to the geography entitlement and the nature of what is studied. This will involve us discussing and consulting with the many stakeholders the RGS has.
There will also be some who want to ensure that there is space for the GCSE Natural History in the curriculum mix of course.
This report, chaired by Charles Clarke, and created by OCR takes a look at the curriculum and assessment ahead of the forthcoming Francis review.
I had a look at the document as part of my work preparing for the RGS's support for teachers and gathering their views.
A review of the 11-16 Curriculum and Assessment, chaired by former Education Secretary Charles Clarke.
I've been fortunate to work on a few things linked with OCR's work over the years, and serve on their Consultative Forums for both Geography and Natural History.
This is one of several documents currently being explored as part of the work we are doing at the RGS on the Education Committee. It was produced after extensive involvement of stakeholders and 2000 young people.
Main findings (from OCR website):
The report’s recommendations include calls to:
Reduce the number of assessments used at GCSE, spread them out across the two years of key stage 4, and review the appropriate use of non-exam assessments
Reduce the content of the GCSE curriculum, allowing more time for the study of broader skills and competences
Introduce a benchmarking qualification, taken on screen, in maths and English to highlight gaps in students’ knowledge and provide structure to Key Stage 3
Redesign the English Language GCSE as a matter of urgency, and include a broader definition of English skills including media and spoken language
The report arrives as the current Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has commissioned a government review into curriculum and assessment, chaired by Professor Becky Francis.
OCR is sharing the report and key findings with Bridget Phillipson and Becky Francis.
The report has generated a great deal of positive reaction. Geoff Barton, Chair of the Independent Commission of Oracy in England, said: “This report provides an important, evidence-based agenda for the new government’s curriculum and assessment review, and provides a welcome opportunity to keep what’s good in our education system but improve what’s not good enough.”
A cross-posting from my GeoLibrary blog which has hundreds of books recommended and with some information about where they might be used, and why they deserve a shelf on the GeoLibrary.
The book follows one day, and the orbits they trace over the world. In between their routine jobs and exercise, we hear about them and their families and their thoughts as they stare down on the earth below - tracking the path of a super-typhoon with their privileged view of the world below.
There are some truly wonderful passages, and it's definitely a geography book.
The descriptions of each landscape and country as they appear are really beautiful.
The section here is part of a chapter - they are all very short and this helps you subdivide the book if you want to prolong the reading of it and savour each page - which looks at the point where the astronauts and cosmonauts realise that they can see the hand of people everywhere on the planet which is described as "a landscape of want" - something I've talked about before.
It also links with another story I've told many times before: Bill Anders, 'Earthrise' and the impact of the experience of being in space on those who have to literally come back down to Earth.
I've just finished it and it comes very highly recommended.
