Ethical Fashion Report

 

Baptist World Aid's Ethical Fashion report is an annual event, and the report for 2022 has been released recently.

The full report would usefully sit alongside other materials linked with the teaching of the impacts of fashion, alongside Dana Thomas' excellent book perhaps and the resources created by Fashion Revolution.

Here are the criteria they used for their scores - always important to know how any index is calculated.

Download it from here.

Alford Gardner's Windrush story

 

We shared the story of Alford earlier in the week in our Windrush75 discussions with Year 7. Later that day, he appeared as one of the subjects of the BBC portraits of Windrush, and will be on display in the National Portrait Gallery later in the year.

We are delighted to announce that portraits of the Windrush Generation commissioned by His Majesty King Charles III will go on display in the Gallery from October. pic.twitter.com/UwcoCx7QyT

— National Portrait Gallery (@NPGLondon) June 22, 2023

 The book that Alford and his son wrote about his life is also published now and available to buy.

Refugee Misconception Study from Gapminder

We start Year 8 by looking at the work of Gapminder and their misconception tests. 

There is now a new one for our students to complete.

Most people overestimate how many refugees flee to the richest countries! We discovered this misconception and many more in our new Refugee Misconception Study.
See all of the findings here: https://t.co/a6CM5VgQvK pic.twitter.com/rJNT9MQPma

— Gapminder (@Gapminder) June 21, 2023

Gapminder has released a report which is available to download, and explores the misconceptions that people have about migration and refugees.

As it says on the site:

Refugees are often in the news. The best ways to help them, where they should be housed and how much money to spend assisting them are fought over by politicians, the public and in the media. In our Refugee Misconception Study 2023, we discovered that – regardless of people’s opinions – they were almost equally wrong about the facts.

We asked nine fact questions in seven different countries. The average number of questions each person answered correctly across those countries was 2.1. That is worse than random!

I like the fact that as well as monkeys they also now compare people's score with chatbots...

Time to update my knowledge again...

Windrush Day 2023

We will be revisiting the work we did earlier in the academic year today with those groups who have a Year 7 lesson.

Windrush Day marks the day that the original migrants disembarked from the ship and changed the history of Britain.

Local newspapers have been sharing many stories of migrants for some days, and local news has also had some good coverage, which is pleasing to see.

I have a growing library of books on this and related topics, including the book by Floella Benjamin.

There have also been some recent interesting new additions:

- The Royal Mint has launched some new coins, desgined by Valda Johnson. 

- The Royal Mail has also got in on the action with some lovely stamps.

There are 8 stamps featuring related scenes and I have ordered a set, along with postcards.

Further stories of the callous government decisions affecting the Windrush Generation are emerging.

RMetS Heatwaves Scheme

The Royal Meteorological Society has been working with the Young People's Trust for the Environment on a new 4 lesson scheme of work about Heatwaves. This is timely given the first amber alert which has been announced for the southern half of the UK this coming weekend and into next week.

Heatwaves are now being graded on a four point scale. This is part of the Heat Health Alert Service.

Details are here.

All of the materials are available to download from the RMetS website

This package of lesson plans consists of 4 lessons:

Lesson 1: What are heatwaves?
Lesson 2: Why are heatwaves dangerous?
Lesson 3: How can schools prepare for a heatwave?
Lesson 4: What is your school like during a heatwave and how could it be improved?

By the end, students should be able to show which places in the school are most affected by extreme heat, understand what measures could be put in place to reduce the impact of extreme heat and be able to present their learning and research.

The lessons have been designed to support learners in Key Stage 2 (or equivalent) with understanding more about heatwaves, the reasons why we are likely to face more of them in the future and some steps that schools can take to protect young people during these events. 

The lessons can be adapted to suit other age groups by modifying the information given in the linked notes.

New Polar maps from the British Antarctic Survey

The Arctic and Antarctic are changing so rapidly that the maps need updating regularly. This work is completed by the British Antarctic Survey. I have one of their maps for my department, but perhaps need the latest now to replace it (or for comparison).

Today our cartographers released new Antarctic and Arctic maps - with lots of changes to these fast changing and fragile places:

🧊 ice sheet loss
🌊 new sea ice data
📌 using indigenous town names in the Canadian Arctic#WorldOceansDay #climatechangehttps://t.co/GNfe2F5BEF

— British Antarctic Survey 🐧 (@BAS_News) June 8, 2023

The BAS have just released some new maps.

News here.