A blog providing ideas and resources for those teachers hoping to teach the new GCSE Specification, first announced in April 2022. Draft subject content released for consultation in June 2026 - for first teaching from 2028 or 2029.
This BBC Sounds feature has many episodes.
Each one tends to focus on a species of bird, or something that may connect with birdlife. There is a large range of people who have contributed their voice to a programme, so plenty to catch up here, and they feature some of the species that appear on the lists of birds mentioned in the draft subject content.
There are two key apps for those who want to identify plants. I've already mentioned iNaturalist, but I've also had a play with the PlantNet app.
This is free to download for iPhone and Android.
I tried it in the gardens of the building where my classroom is located. The app was good at letting me know what plant I was looking at.
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.
The Mammal Society has a useful guide on their website.
Why not get some Plop Trumps to hone your skills... I have the number 2 set...
But the ultimate pocket-sized resource is Plop Trumps. It’s the business! 💩 pic.twitter.com/fC4oOIDSqT
— Head In The Clouds (@leysbiotutor) August 6, 2024
They cost about £6 from a range of places...
When you are out on a walk, choose SOUND ID and press the green button.
Merlin identifies bird sounds using breakthroughs in machine learning technology to recognize species based on spectrograms—visual representations of sounds. For Merlin to learn to recognize a species by sound, we use audio recordings from the Macaulay Library that include a variety of sounds for each species to “train” Merlin.Your smartphone's microphone will be used to record sounds in real time, and as the software identifies a match with a bird that is singing, it will appear on the screen, and you can compare the suggestion with what you are hearing.
Here's what it picked up on a walk I took yesterday's evening.
The Natural History Museum offers a range of ID guides.
These are downloadable and can usefully support the use of the FSC ID guides which we have blogged about previously. They are not always as detailed as the FSC guides, and focus on some specific areas, and fewer of them.
They are free of charge however, which will be useful for those who would like to offer the new specification but have limited budgets to introduce it. It will be important that guidance is given on how to reduce the cost of introducing the new specification, which could prove costly given the range of different areas that students will need to be introduced to, and which teachers will need to be upskilled on.
It would be useful to have some sort of library of ID guides for students to access, and perhaps a company will be paired up with certain aspects of the course to sponsor some resources that will be provided to schools offering the specification.
The companies that are involved will need to be carefully chosen however. One can imagine an oil company offering to sponsor the resources - it would not be the first time they have sponsored school resources - often making them free of charge, but with prominent branding.
The latest in a series of posts on organisations which aim to protect some aspect of Natural History, and may be involved in the creation of teaching materials for the specification.
The Woodland Trust was created in 1972, so 2022 marked its 50th anniversary.
In that time it has planted over 50 million trees, and also undergone some changes in its strategy over which trees it should planting in specific locations.
The Woodland Trust has produced a range of resources that would be of interest for those preparing materials for the new specification.
Temperature deciduous woodland is the climax vegetation for the UK, although most of the country is held in plagioclimax by humans.
Ancient woodlands are very few and far between, with tiny remote pockets such as Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor. I shall post about Guy Shrubsole's excellent, and award-winning book separately.
Recent research has pointed out the importance of mature trees. It is important to keep them in place. A few saplings in plastic tubes do not perform the same function.
We also need far more trees in urban areas to provide shade on the hottest of days.
Urban trees are #biodiversity heroes in concrete jungles, reducing energy use, improving water quality, and increasing property values.
— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) June 29, 2023
🌳🏙️🌳
Via @FAO pic.twitter.com/khEZRFBry1
There is also Woodland Trust's work in Scotland, who also produce learning materials. I am a fan of their Primary pack for Learning Outdoors which has lots of nice activities in an attractive downloadable pack.
Their work on saving Scotland's temperate forests is outlined here.
I've visited several of these locations, including Uig wood on the Isle of Skye.
ID Keys are a key resource for use in the field to help identify plants (flowers, mosses, lichens), birds, animals (mammals, insects etc.) or other flora and fauna.
They are available in folded, laminated form from the FSC Shop and other outlets (RSPB reserve and Wildlife Trust shops for example). They are called WildID Guides.
Some have also previously been translated into Smartphone apps but don't seem to be available.
Each guide costs around £4 and it would be worth factoring in the cost of these to budget planning.
Look at the new specification when it (eventually) appears to see which guides might be the most useful.
I already own about ten different keys, from sand dune plants to bats.
Any school that is planning to teach the new specification and qualification will need to work out a budget for the whole process of preparing the teachers, resourcing the lessons and providing a range of associated books, equipment and fieldvisits. This is why some people are suggesting that it will be more likely to be offered by schools that can afford the investment of time and money. We will see whether that is what transpires, but hopefully I will be involved in providing resources for schools with different budgets.
Update - September 2023
📣New Guide Earlybird Offer📣
— Field Studies Council (@FieldStudiesC) September 2, 2023
Discover waders with our new WildID guide #Waders of Britain and Ireland. £3 until 1 Oct 2023.
A distinctive group of birds perfect for autumn bird watching.
Learn more in our latest blog and get the offer: https://t.co/OKpUSAWqXf#Birdwatching pic.twitter.com/DmMFOMtjPo
Updated October 2023
They also have this fan...
I have a few collections – animal skulls , poo , feathers – but this may be one of my most prized !@FieldStudiesC Wild ID Guides are a must-have for any naturalist , I take them everywhere I go . You can view the range here https://t.co/SLLse4LjUZ pic.twitter.com/qKnPuX6YLo
— Chris Packham (@ChrisGPackham) September 29, 2023
A cross posting from my Geo Library blog project - what do you mean you haven't visited? There's over 700 books that would be of in...
