#608: Peatland restoration

Some years ago, I worked with a researcher to translate their work into the classroom. 

It was written for the RGS-IBG's From the Field project.

The work looked at how peat moorlands recovered after fires. There have been a number of fires in the Peak District and such fires are becoming more common with high temperatures and drought conditions.

Aims

Once a heathland ecosystem has been damaged by fire, it can take many years to become re-established. Like any area of vegetation, relationships become established between the plants and the animals that inhabit them, and across the trophic levels that make up the network ecology.

Rose’s work is to explore the mechanisms for the restoration of pollination, and the extent to which this has been successful over time. As an area recovers from fire, it will also move through the stages of plant succession: a process which will have been arrested by the fire.

This is essential if the ecosystem is going to recover. The restored heathland network tends to have a different structure to the ancient heathland, with fewer interactions between the plants, bees and parasites that live on the bees.

The work was funded by Goldsmiths Company.

#596: Thoughts on the proposed subject content

Last Friday saw the document that we had been waiting for for a long time: proposed subject content for the GCSE Natural History.

I've been looking through it to make a sort of 'to do' list ahead of the next stage of the process and have scribbled all over a copy of the document below - and started collating some comments for the consultation.

There's still a lot of thinking to do.

There are some other perspectives from a Labour MP for example...

This piece from Seirian Summer in Phys.org / The Conversation made some interesting points.

The education system has done little to nurture curiosity and understanding of nature in real life.

They like the ecology aspects:

This curriculum serves the field of ecology pretty well. Students will learn to identify native species found in grasslands, woodlands, urban and marine environments. They will learn about the dynamic relationships between species and the implications of human influence (including climate change) for habitats, ecosystems and species. This helps equip the next generation as effective stewards of the natural world, and it complements other subjects such as biology and geography.

On the idea of plant blindness"

We have become a nature-blind society: "plant blindness" is a term used to describe how we fail to see the most common wildlife (plants) under our noses. We need to relearn the innate ability we all had as toddlers to notice the tiny creatures beneath our feet or the fractal patterns emanating through sunlit leaves.

On the 20 hours of fieldwork that the course requires, they say it's not enough - GCSE PE includes 45 hours of practical time... (which may not take place outside of course).

Twenty hours is an average of 15 minutes a week over a two-year GCSE. Hardly time to step outside, let alone find something that catches your eye, make notes about its appearance and behavior, then find the right identification key to name it. In a time-stressed world, noticing nature—really observing it closely, not just ticking species off a list—offers an excuse to slow down, be mindful and spark your curiosity.

They also mention something that I think should form part of the assessment: a nature journal, with observations, leaves and other related ephemera, sketches, sound recordings, images and drawings and clippings from newspapers and other sources, plus tickets of places visited and events attended.

A short course on nature journalling may be an option for teachers, providing guidance on fieldwork observation, recording and methods used in ecology. There are 17 bullet points in that section of the proposed content.

More to come over the next year...

#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...

#483: Safari... so good...

One from the Google Alert that I set up for 'GCSE Natural History'.

Intrigued by this story.

Cottar's, Africa's oldest family-run safari company, has launched an innovative five-day educational experience for teenagers, specifically designed around the UK's new Natural History GCSE curriculum. Olivia Palamountain reports

Cottar's Safaris will debut "Tracks for Tomorrow" in October 2025 at its 1920s Camp in Kenya's Olderkesi Conservancy in the Maasai Mara.

Targeting young people aged 14-18 with hands-on conservation learning, the programme represents a unique approach to educational travel, with activities specifically aligned to Natural History GCSE educational goals including observation, field studies, sustainability, and ecosystem awareness. Participants receive a certificate of completion, creating a lasting milestone in their conservation education.

The programme launches as the UK introduces its new Natural History GCSE, creating a timely educational tourism opportunity that bridges classroom learning with real-world conservation experience in one of Africa's most significant wildlife areas.

Intrigued because the curriculum for the new Natural History GCSE isn't yet confirmed, following an earlier draft consultation - which produced something which will inevitably change substantially following other consultation processes.

The trip sounds excellent to be fair... it includes:

Innovative programme elements include wild foraging for edible plants and insects, seedball reforestation projects, and a choice between deep-diving into cheetah conservation or raptor studies with daily updates on 500 monitored nests.

The programme blends traditional Maasai cultural education through "Warrior School" with modern conservation challenges, including sustainability tasks where teens design eco-friendly camps or develop ideas to reduce travel carbon footprints.

However, the price may put it out of the reach of most schools.

#406: Important update and story in 'The Guardian'

“We need nature education at the heart of school life so everyone has access to it, not just middle-class people who go to the countryside at the weekend and have big gardens. 

It’s the kids in very urban areas who I had in mind because the whole idea of the GCSE is to make natural history on your doorstep something you are fascinated by. 

We have such a crisis in the mental health of our young people and nature is known to be a very healing thing.”

Mary Colwell

The Guardian has a piece from its Environment reporter on the continued delay.

It's a great pity if this is seen as 'political' and something that the new Government can't get behind and move to the next phase with. It has the potential to offer something distinctively different from other curriculum offerings.

As Mary says at the end of the piece:

"Nature can’t afford to be a political football. We need future generations to understand or care for the natural world.”

#341: Podcast with Mary Colwell - June 2024

GCSE Podcast with Mary Colwell.

From the transcript

A subject criteria panel were established. Now this is a panel that decide the overarching content of the GCSE. It's not the detail that's set by the different exam boards, but it's the principles which the exam boards have to adhere to. So the criteria panel was set up and although I couldn't be on it, I wasn't allowed on it and it's secretive, I did manage to influence two things. One, I managed to get them to concentrate on making habitats, the centre of how it would be organised, so that habitats around the country would be understood in terms of the species that live in there. So you'd go anywhere and be able to say, oh, this must be a wetland or this must be an ancient woodland or this must be a disturbed urban area or whatever it is. And these key indicator species of different habitats would form the sort of core of the GCSE. And I also to persuade them to send the content out to a range of really good field naturalists before it went public. So that panel was set up and that all happened. And the next thing that has to happen is that it goes to public consultation. All new GCSEs have to go to public consultation, which means you, me and everybody can comment on the content. Normally, and there haven't been very many GCSEs recently, so it's not something that's been tested much. In fact, the only one recently has been the sign language, British sign language, which probably doesn't need much consultation because that's a very defined and understood thing. But natural history, you know, garners a lot of interest. And so to get ready for the public consultation, they sent it round to naturalists and got it ready. But for some reason, just before the consultation was due to be announced, it was stuck. it got stuck in a process whereby all ministers have to sign off new legislation, new input. And for some reason there was some disagreement amongst ministers, so although the Department for Education had agreed it, somewhere somebody or a collection of people didn't agree to it, and there was no furtherment of that before the next, this recent general election was called. So it didn't get to public consultation. And now we have a general election. It looks likely we'll have a change of government. And I have literally no idea how the new incoming Labour government, which we're all assuming, is going to feel about a GCSE in natural history. If they don't like it, it might be dead in the water.

And some interesting thoughts on the teaching of the GCSE and the support that people will need...

There's also though, a lot of concern that we lack the expertise and knowledge to teach it. Because there was this everybody could say, oh, it's fine, it's fine, we'll get the GCSE and natural history and geography and biology teachers will do it. Well, not necessarily, because it's not always biology and geography teachers that are naturalists. And in fact, I would say that we're really missing naturalists everywhere. You know, you can be a biologist and not a naturalist, definitely. And the same is true for geography. So we need a whole level of support. for teachers and for schools to take this. We need to give them the confidence that there is the expertise out there, that the support out there whenever they need it. In terms of online resources, courses, teacher training, money for equipment or even to go on trips if that's what's needed. You know, we need to know, schools need to know they're supported and I then think it will absolutely take off. So there's a huge amount of enthusiasm, but there's also concern that we're not getting the support in place that's needed to make it really fly.

#262: Carbon Footprints

An interesting analysis from OFQUAL of the carbon footprint of sitting a GCSE.

If we have a new GCSE in Natural History does that mean that it is actually increasing the carbon footprint of anyone who takes it? Interesting to discuss.

It's worth remembering that the use of the term was particularly developed by the oil company BP, and could be thought of as a way to deflect the blame away from fossil fuel companies and place it onto us...

See this Mashable article for more on this.