#369: Back to School for the National Education Nature Park

...for the second year of this project... plenty of things planned during the year ahead...

They have launched a Hidden Nature Challenge to be completed in October, with a chance to win some prizes.

#368: Overhaul for Natural History Museum

A recent report in The Guardian gave some information on the latest developments at the Natural History Museum, which has spent a lot of time and money overhauling its outside spaces recently.

Now it's moving to the inside and exploring how its work is presented.

It has announced plans to overhaul four galleries - including the iconic dinosaur exhibit - as they add a permanent display on “climate messaging”.

The Museum will raise £150 million to revamp their programming and join “a global mission to create 100 million advocates for the planet”.

The new exhibition, Fixing Our Broken Planet, will have the express aim of “nudging” visitors to change their behaviour.

The piece quotes the Director Doug Gurr:

Until recently, Gurr told the Guardian, the museum had seen itself as a “passive observer … our job was to collect, to conserve, to research, to display”.

“[Then] we stepped back a bit and said: ‘Well, hang on, if your subject matter is planet Earth and it’s under that much threat, you’ve got to do something about it. If you want the sporting analogy: how do you get off the sidelines and get on the pitch?”

In 2020 the museum declared a planetary emergency, and Gurr said the redevelopment was part of its continuing response. “The best contribution we can make is to create what we call ‘advocates for the planet’. And what that really means is: how do you inspire people at scale to care about nature and to care enough to want to do something about it?

“Of course, we still want people to have a brilliant, fun family day out. But if you can come out of that being a little bit more interested in nature and a little bit more aware of some of the challenges, you’re a bit more likely to want to do something about it.”

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#367: Rivers' Trust App - Citizen Science

Help out the Rivers Trust - the rivers need all of our help at the moment.... 

🤳YOU can help #rivers this weekend, and it couldn't be easier.

Join Rivers Trust Ambassador @Al_Humphreys and take part in #BigRiverWatch. Survey a river to help us better understand the health of our water.

Just download the app & record what you see! https://t.co/G0Ru3rCZY5 pic.twitter.com/fxeJM9CBfz

— The Rivers Trust (@theriverstrust) September 6, 2024

#366: Free Fungi Foundation Resources

I've blogged about fungi resources previously, but here's an updated notification on the work of the Fungi Foundation.

The Fungi Foundation has made its free Mycological Curriculum resources available.

Are you a teacher or educator looking for ways to incorporate fungi into your classes? Remember, you can access all of our free educational resources through https://t.co/5M21YldI7E, including our free Mycological Curriculum available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese 🙌🏽 pic.twitter.com/FihwIGCWKI

— Fungi Foundation (@fungifoundation) September 18, 2024

They also have a film and course that you can watch when you enrol for free. Excellent support for those wanting to learn more about fungi, which one would expect to be included in any final draft specification - when it emerges....

Also available in several other languages...

#365: Art

Hopefully the final specification for the GCSE Natural History will follow up on the promise of the original draft thoughts of Mary Colwell and others. From the clues that I've seen at OCR Consultative Forum meetings and elsewhere, I'm not sure that all of the more interesting (to me) elements such as reference to art, literature and poetry will survive OFQUAL reviews.

One thing I hope stays is an exploration of how Natural History has been represented in art, and how that has changed - from prehistoric cave paintings to the iPad drawings of the Yorkshire Wolds through the seasons by David Hockney. Here's a really beautiful painting - I'll share more of these on the blog in the next year or so as things hopefully get back on track for an eventual launch.

'A City Garden', James McIntosh Patrick, oil on canvas, 1940.

#364: Sycamore Gap: a GA resource

A new(ish) resource which can be accessed and used by members of the Geographical Association. I am considering adding a section of this to my teaching this year.

Sycamore Gap is a significant landmark in Northumberland where three distinct features combined: a natural and dramatic dip in the physical landscape about halfway along the 80-mile run of Hadrian’s Wall, itself an ancient monument and reminder of the power of the Roman Empire, and until recently, a lone, 300-year-old Sycamore tree. The site has UNESCO designation and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Arguably, it will still be known as Sycamore Gap because of its story.

The tree has stood for hundreds of years, perfectly framed by the landscape, thrilling locals and visitors alike until it was deliberately cut down, under cover of darkness, sometime between the evening of 27 September 2023 and the following morning. 

The loss of the tree has caused an outcry and reaction of public grief.

These materials are designed to help children think about some of the issues this story raises. What do they know about Sycamore Gap? Where is it? Have they been there? Why and how do certain landmarks hold such meaning? What is the cultural impact of this and other significant landmarks on our lives? Whose place is this? Who decides what happens here?

While these materials provide a relevant and current context for developing geographical substantive, disciplinary and procedural knowledge, they also model how you might investigate other landmarks with particular significance to your own local community and landscape and the emotions they engender in people.

Complete Materials:PowerPoint
Teachers Notes
Photo Activity
Individual Resource Pages:

Sycamore Gap 1: What’s the geography story?
Sycamore Gap 2: What can images and maps tell us about landmarks?
Sycamore Gap 3: Why can we see so many stars?
Sycamore Gap 4: Changing views
Sycamore Gap 5: How do we feel about it?
Sycamore Gap 6: A Gap in the landscape
Sycamore Gap 7: Why should we value trees?
Sycamore Gap 8: What would be your ‘tree of the year’?
Sycamore Gap 9: Change
Sycamore Gap 10: How do we fill the Gap?


Thanks to Steve Rawlinson, Tessa Willy, Sharon Witt and Margaret Mackintosh for feedback, edits and ideas.

#363: Schools Week 'confirmation' of 2026 delay

Given that the next stage of consultation on the curriculum and other statutory steps have not yet been taken and it's September 2024, first teaching from 2025 was not going to happen, but the date has apparently been changed on OCR's timeline, according to this Schools Week post.

#362: British Wildlife Centre

The British Wildlife Centre is in Surrey.

Follow the Twitter feed for more.

From the website:

Our aims are more than visitor enjoyment, our mission is conservation through education. 

Our objectives are:

• To inform and stimulate greater interest in Britain’s native wildlife and increase awareness of the need and means to conserve it and its habitats.
• To place public education at the heart of everything we do and make it a key part in every visitor’s experience.
• To develop facilities for schools and other educational organisations to conduct teaching and field studies.
• To advance our own knowledge of British wildlife and share this with both the public and the scientific community.

#361: Natural History Poems #1 - Hallaig by Sorley MacLean

The first of a series of posts suggesting poems that students could be asked to engage with

Hallaig is a poem by the late Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean or more correctly Somhairle MacGill-Eain.

You can find out more about his life at this website, which has been around for a long time. He has a long career and was influential on the Isle of Skye and beyond.

I had the great pleasure of meeting him briefly while walking through the village where he lived, and close to which a friend was living at the time.

The poem was set to music by the late musician Martyn Bennett (one of my favourite musicians).

#360: A fishy tale

A cross-posting from my Passed the Point of No Return blog.

Back in 1983-4 I had a lecturer on my undergraduate degree course from a wonderful lecturer called Alan Pitkethly. He is fondly remembered by many of his students. 

He would lecture without notes often, sat on the desk, taking us along on a story. One of his lectures was on the idea of the 'Commons' and the changing fortunes of salmon in Canadian rivers.

This Guardian article looks at the decline in migratory fish populations and the impact of human activity.

Another story of collapse - migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970 https://t.co/y3rKQZkrMp

— Phoebe Weston (@phoeb0) May 21, 2024

#359: Soil

A video from the Royal Society on the value of soil.

Soil is a miracle material providing us with food and medicine, and in one teaspoon of soil there are more micro-organisms than people on the Earth. Despite this, we treat it like dirt. Dig into the magical world of soil with our video with @BBCIdeas. #biodiversity pic.twitter.com/MzReJRA8sP

— The Royal Society (@royalsociety) August 24, 2024

#358: "Nature's Ghosts"

A recent piece in The Guardian from Sophie Yeo uses the phrase 'nature's ghosts' to refer to some of the lost species which have been the result of modern farming methods. It's an extract from her new book of the same name, and is tellingly part of a series of articles called 'The age of extinction'.

Here's a review of the book.

I will hunt this out in the library and perhaps add it to the reading list in due course.

#357: Wicken Fen's 125th birthday

2024 marks the 125th birthday of Wicken Fen: a local nature reserve to me in Cambridgeshire.

Wednesday 1 May 2024 marked 125 years since the National Trust acquired its first two acres of land at Wicken Fen. 

Since 1899, when it became the National Trust's first nature reserve, Wicken Fen has now expanded to over 2,000 acres. Today, it is one of Europe's most important wetlands and home to more than 9,000 species.

#356: Natural History Reading List #19: Fen, Bog and Swamp

One of my favourite books - I have a very nice compact edition with sailing ropes on the spine and cover - is 'The Shipping News' by Annie Proulx.

A more recent book is 'Fen, Bog and Swamp', subtitled as 'A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis'.

It covers a great deal of ground, and starts with some useful definitions of the distinction between the three terms, which some people might feel can be conflated. 

There are differences between these three landscape (and habitat) types, and the use that people make of them. The index also provides a wealth of links to useful websites.

This Guardian review clearly explains why this should be on the shelf of any GCSE Natural History reading list / departmental library.

"Proulx conjures up the lost landscape, teeming as it was with eels and sturgeon, beavers and water voles, ospreys and cranes and populated by an unmourned fen people who “poled through curtains of rain, gazed at the layered horizon, at curling waves that pummelled the land edge in storms”. But for all her sadness at the destruction of our wetlands and what she calls “the awfulness of the present”, perhaps what’s most interesting about the book is her refusal to engage in the usual left versus rightpolitical debate."

We are all complicit in this destruction of the natural world.

My copy was borrowed from the Norfolk Library Service, but I shall be purchasing a copy 

Hardback, 196pp - paperback version now available.

ISBN: 978-0-00-853439-4

#355: Panpsychism

What is panpsychism?

It's the notion that everything is conscious. It connects with the notion that natural features should have rights in the same way as people have rights...

This Vox piece explores it.

#354: Saltmarshes

An interesting piece in Geographical magazine looked at the vital role that saltmarshes will play in mitigating sea level rise caused by Climate change.

I am fortunate to live in Norfolk and can be at a salt marsh within 25 minutes of leaving my home. They are wonderful places and last month came into bloom with sea lavender and other plants cloaking them in colour.

You can find their locations using the MAGIC application which I have blogged about here separately.

Image: Flowering plants on salt marsh in Norfolk, by Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license.

#353: Seek App

The Seek App was mentioned by Alastair Humphreys in his recent book 'Home' where he explores his local area for a year, rather than looking to go further afield. 

Ordnance Survey sell customised OS maps for areas as well - centred on a particular place - I have one for our own home which I won in a competition, and also one for the geography department centred on the school.

Seek is an app which allows you to learn about the nature all around you. Available for iOS and Android.

This is worth a look for those who are starting to think about preparing for some fieldwork as well, perhaps around the GA's National Fieldwork Festival next year - it's never too early to start planning fieldwork. 

#352: Solastalgia

Solastalgia was mentioned in the Guardian last year in a piece by Damien Gayle.

It's a word I've been familiar with for a while now, as it's a feeling I have had often in the last decade in particular as extreme weather has become more common, and local environments have shown signs of changing, and not always in a good way.

It was used in a piece back in 2016 by Robert MacFarlane who described its origins in the writing of Glenn Albrecht.

The context was the impact of coal mining on the surrounding area.

Solastalgia can be defined as: the “distress produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment”.

On the VeryWell website, there is also a suggestion that:

"When the places that matter most to us—our homes, our lands, and our communities—are disrupted, changed, or threatened, we may also sustain a less visible but no less damaging impact that is carried with us emotionally"

Here's a TED talk with Albrecht talking about the term:

And a BBC Futures piece on the idea.

It also points out quite rightly that other cultures have similar words or expressions, and that they probably predate ours given the various despoilation of the world by colonisation...

Solastalgia is not just a first-world concept. Sri Warsini, a researcher at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia is looking into instances of solastalgia that occur in developing countries such as Indonesia, following natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, finding that the loss of housing, livestock and farmland, and the ongoing danger of living in a disaster-prone area, challenge a person’s sense of place and identity and can lead to depression.

This field—the life it contains & sustains—will soon be gone. Today chirping grasshoppers, twittering goldfinches, a vole’s squeak; pretty grasses, swirling. I got to know this land; to it I let myself attach meaning & importance. But I can’t protect it, so must face up to loss. pic.twitter.com/T9wXXMdNpR

— James Gilbert (@jamesgilbertmr) September 25, 2023

#351: Lion's teeth

Dandelions.

My lawn is mostly made up of them.

'Join' the Dandelion Appreciation Society in appreciating these plants.

Their name comes from the serrated tooth-like edges of their leaves, which resemble lion's teeth - which in French is dents de lions...

They are also known slightly differently in the French as piss-en-lits.. because they have a diuretic effect.

You can also tell the time with their clocks.

#350: GCSE Natural History and the election - still waiting.

The status of the qualification is now in limbo as a result of the general election and a change of government.

I've already blogged about the possible impact of this earlier on this GCSE Natural History blog.

What did the political parties have to say on the matter of nature and natural history? There was little in the manifestos to link to the climate emergency or protecting biodiversity.

The new Environmental Secretary talked about the terrible state that some of our environment is in, and water companies have been fined for polluting the rivers - a starting point, assuming the fines come out of dividends for shareholders rather than being passed on to customers.

Will Labour continue with the GCSE Natural History project as part of their look at the curriculum?

There are a lot of unknowns here. Caroline Lucas, who was a big supporter, stepped down as an MP.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.