Climate Change Assembly

On Friday, the day of the Climate Strike, I led a whole school assembly at King's Ely Junior with my colleague Richard Oliver, the Head of Science.

Climate Change Assembly from GeoBlogs

We tried to give a message of hope, alongside the scientific aspects. I gave the 'global perspective', with a mention of the Climate Stripes of Ed Hawkins, Jim Hansen's warning to Congress in 1988 (the year when I got my first full time teaching jobs) and an apology for the last 30 years of carbon which are having an impact now. I also talked about Project Drawdown.

We showed the Thunberg / Monbiot video at the start.

We ended with a hymn, and a prayer written by Richard.

It's shared above in case anyone would find it useful in some way.

Thanks to Ben King for some of the elements of the assembly that he had shared previously.

Climate Change Teachers

A useful background to the opportunity to become accredited for your knowledge of Climate Change and lead curriculum making around this vital topic.

UN CC Accreditation - put your school on the map

There seems to be a growing consensus now about the importance of teaching climate change in schools.
And from my personal perspective, and Steve Brace of the RGS agrees, it's perhaps the geographers who are best placed to do that within the curriculum.

However, all curriculum subjects could bring their own perspectives to the issue: the scientists exploring the atmosphere, mathematicians exploring the data behind changing temperatures, the English teachers studying appropriate books, and Historians exploring the Little Ice Age and the widespread impacts of previous changes in climate over a short time period.

You may also have other ideas of how your subject can support the teaching of climate change.

Are you on the map of climate change teachers yet?

It may be that the summer is the perfect time to go through the accreditation, or perhaps you prefer to wait until the new school year?
The accreditation involves a range of quizzes, following working through a series of modules on climate change topics. I've blogged about the process previously.

The deadline to be part of phase 1 of the project is the end of September.
Don't delay...
Because climate change won't wait either.

I mentioned Greta Thunberg earlier and the author Melissa Harrison has been co-ordinating a crowdfunding project to get more copies of the book into schools. This has been very successful, and the amount raised is increasing.

If you would like to get some copies of the book for your own school, particularly if your budget would otherwise make it difficult for you to do this, then you need to request some copies.

Are you a teacher, teaching assistant or school librarian? Would you like your school to receive 10 free copies of Greta Thunberg’s book of speeches, to give to kids? Send an email to gretaforschools@gmail.com with the name of the school, its address and a contact name. Please RT

— Melissa Harrison 🌾 (@M_Z_Harrison) August 6, 2019

Saffron O' Neill's Climate Change Resource

You'll have noticed a Climate Change trend appearing in recent posts on the blog perhaps, following my starting work as a UN Accredited Climate Change teacher which has meant a lot of behind the scenes work to develop some new support options which will be made available to all schools in time.
This is a critical time for influencing public behaviours, and ensuring that students are aware of the realities of Climate Change, which is going to change the world they live in, and require certain changes in their lifestyle, purchasing, transport options and potentially far greater changes.

I've been following up various leads to new Climate Change resources, which are different to the norm.

Saffron O' Neill replied to one of my requests for help with some research she is doing on how  people view Climate Change, and how it is represented in the media.
She developed some work about how people respond to climate change. The tweet I saw was this one...

Paper just accepted to Climatic Change: 'More than meets the eye: A longitudinal analysis of climate change imagery in the print media'. Found a distinct change in visual framing from mid-2000s, illustrating rise of CC scepticism. Visual synedoches (e.g. polar bears) play a role. pic.twitter.com/RPpYfHlnt1

— Saffron O'Neill (@SaffronJONeill) July 17, 2019

Check out Saffron's blog as well.

She has produced a set of materials and images which are very useful using a Visual Q method which she has used in her research. Thanks for sharing the materials.
I am going to use and adapt these for a forthcoming resource which I am working on for the new term. A spot of research led practice but for me the best kind: one based on research around the specific geographical context of the work, rather than generic neuroscience...

In the news...

UN Accredited Climate Change Teacher

Earlier this week, I became the 50th (ish) teacher in the UK to pass the accreditation process to be recognised by the United Nations as a climate change lead teacher.This involved taking a number of online courses, which involved interactive lessons, powerpoints, video, audio and PDF documents, and other materials to digest, before taking a series of online quizzes, which had a limited option for taking them, and a pass rate which had to be reached for each one. Some of them were more challenging than others, and I had a moment of slight panic when I failed the very final test, which meant I had just one more attempt to pass it in order to pass the course as a whole. After an introductory unit on Climate Change science, the accreditation involves five further modules which go into great, and very useful, detail on several aspects of climate change, which are:

- Cities and Climate Change
- Children and Climate Change
- Human Health and Climate Change
- Gender and Environment
- Climate Change International Legal Regime




Sign up to take part in the course here....

You will learn a huge amount, and gain confidence in exploring some of the key terms when describing climate change adaptations and mitigations, the process of agreements such as the Kyoto and COP meetings and other scientific evidence.

I'm proud to say that earlier this week, I was confirmed as a
UN-Accredited Climate Change Lead Teacher

I had some photos taken today for circulation to the local press, and will let you know as and when (and if) they end up being used.

To finish, Time for Geography have made and shared a very useful film on Climate Change here.
And Steve Brace's letter at the time when questions were being asked about Climate Change in the curriculum.