Tag: Sustainable Development

Before this week I think I was quite ignorant to the real concerns that the effects of climate change have on our planet. I was aware that climate change was happening and had heard it mentioned on the news etc. but never really considered it to be a big issue. I always thought that ‘other people’ such as scientists were dealing with it and that it was not something I needed to worry about.

After learning about climate change this week and doing some research myself on the issue I now realise just how uneducated I was on the matter. For me, seeing the figures and evidence of the effects climate change is having on our world shocked me. I now realise that we all need to make changes in our lifestyle if we want the world we live in today to still be livable for our children and grandchilrden in years to come. Right now we are living as if we have 1.5 planets, by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, breeding vast amounts of methane and cutting down vast amounts of forest which would naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and this is to only name a few of the issues. Although many of these issues we do not cause personally and they are more to do with the industry, there is still a lot we can do to help reduce emissions.

I measured my carbon footprint using the WWF footprint calculator online at: ‘http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/?_ga=1.176985891.745195644.1442412124’  and I was shocked to see my results.

My carbon footprint was measured at 145%. I was surprised at how high my percentage was. With my biggest issue being travel at 53%, followed by food at 22%.

Seeing these figures I want to make changes to my lifestyle to reduce my carbon footprint. I plan on using the tips from the WWF website on how I can help to make a difference and reduce climate change. I plan to try and walk whenever I can instead of using my car for short journeys and car share whenever possible. I also plan to use public transport more as this reduces emissions significantly.

I also plan to try and change my diet. I eat meat with most meals, I am going to on change this and sometimes try other sources of protein such as beans, peas and nuts.

 

 

Theme:  Climate Change Global Warming and Weather                                                                            Politics and Global Warming

Key Learning: Climate Change In the morning lecture with Andrew, we looked at Climate Change as our theme. We went into detail about the different aspects of climate change, such as: What is Climate Change The evidence of Climate Change What is Causing it The impacts of Climate Change I learned that Climate Change is a long term shift in the weather patterns or average planet temperatures. Throughout it’s 4.5 billion years, earth has experienced both tropical climates and ice ages. Since the last ice age, earth’s climate has stuck around the 14 °C temperature. However, recently this temperature has been increasing. We expect the weather to change a lot from day to day. However, we expect the climate to remain relatively constant and if it doesn’t, we refer to it as Climate Change. In the lecture, we looked at the evidence of climate change. Things to look out for which may prove that there is a change in our climate are: higher temperatures, ice sheets, changing rainfall, changes in nature and sea levels rising . Anything that affects the amount of energy being absorbed from the Sun, or the amount being radiated by the Earth are likely to cause a change in our climate.  It was made clear to me that Climate Change can have a huge impact on us, as it can lead to things such as : higher temperatures, water shortages, higher sea levels and also and extreme change in weather events. Global Warming and Weather After the lecture, we attended a workshop with Andrew where we continued on the topic of Climate change for a little bit. We also looked briefly into what Global Warming was and what causes it. After this discussion, we were assigned practical tasks to engage in.  A few of these tasks that we took part in were: making a cloud in a jar, creating a tornado and comparing the density in both hot and cold water. In order to create the cloud in the jar we had to have a very hot jar with some water in the bottom of it and hold a match over the top of it and quickly place a bag of ice over the top of it. The meeting of the hot and cold eventually created a smoke in the jar which looked like a cloud. For the tornado task, we simply put some water in a jar with fairy liquid and some food colouring and swirled the jar around; creating the tornado. Finally we put hot water in a beaker with red colouring in it and put cold water in the other beaker with blue colouring. Then we placed both of the beakers in the tank of water and it showed us that the hot water had less density, therefore it raised to the top of the tank. Whereas the blue stayed at the bottom as it had a lower density. I thoroughly enjoyed engaging in these practical tasks and I feel that children will also enjoy participating in them. Therefore I feel that it will be good to carry out these ideas to children in the future. Politics and Global Warming We then went into our second workshop with Louise, which focused on politics and global warming. We were asked the question “Why do you think politics might be an important factor in considering Climate Change?” I feel that politicians have a lot of power and a big say in what happens with regards to climate change and sustainability. We looked into some of the Governments actions that are positive, such as being able to rehabilitate endangered and protected species like animals and plants. The Government can educate the general public at a local level. They can also cooperate with other nations and groups.

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice:  Again, due it being very early in the module  I feel that there has not been a significant impact on my views/lifestyle/practices. However, I feel that my knowledge is slowly expanding and I believe that when I have went back over my notes and also done a bit more background reading that has been provided, I will be able to further my knowledge about Climate Change, Weather and Global Warming and Politics and this will then make an impact on my views as I will know much more about it. I never expected this sort of topic to come up in this course. However, I am glad that it did as it is not something that I know a lot about and I must admit that I am intrigued to learn more about it. I feel that this module will benefit me a lot as this something that I would be interested in teaching to children in the future.

Areas of interest to explore further/develop: From these three themes that I have studied today, I feel than an area of interest that I would like to explore further is Politics and Global Warming. I can say that I have a little knowledge on the other two topics as these are some of the things that I have touched on before in primary school and secondary school. However, Politics and Global Warming is a topic that I have never visited before. In fact Politics and Global Warming are two topics that I thought would never have been related until I started this module. After the workshop with Louise I started to develop a little bit of understanding about it. However,  I definitely want to know more about it.

Urban environment

Transport

In my urban environment there is many different popular methods of transport. There is a train station, busses, cars, cyclists and many people choose to walk. The most popular method of transport is cars as the majority of houses have at least one however, many people choose to use public transport to get to their work. This is a benefit to the environment as it helps to prevent the amount of harmful fuel affect the atmosphere.

Community space

In my environment there are three schools. One of them is a new build as there was four schools but two of them have been combined into one. This is good for the environment as it cuts down the amount of electricity being used and it cuts down the cost on materials allowing the money to be spent on other areas of the community. There is also a library which anyone can use but it is particularly targeted toward children from pre school to primary school age which helps to aid in their crucially important development. There are also parks and scenic walkways which encourages people to be outside and exercise.

Recreational spaces

In my urban environment there is a sport centre. It offers gymnastics, swimming, dance, multi sports, football, a gym and fitness classes. The sport centre is used my people of all ages but usually retired adults and young children during the day and working people and teenagers later on and the class times are made to suit this.

Industry and work

In my urban environment there is a lot of agricultural work as there is many farms. The farms no longer have animals in them but are used to grow and sell crops. There is retail services such as supermarkets and clothing shops which are heavily used by the people who live in the local area. My urban environment has services such as health centres, a police station and a prison which helps to keep us healthy and safe.

Physical characteristics

There are a few different types of building in my environment. These many include churches, flats and houses. The road organisation is a mix of minor and major roads and motorway access. There is quite a lot of green spaces for example walkways along the canal and pathways around the ‘moss’.

Population density

My local area had a population of roughly 105,000 people in 2011. However this is a decrease on the number of people that there was ten years previous to that which was roughly 108,000. This could possibly have been due to the financial crisis.

Air quality

The air quality level for pollution level in my urban environment is low (1) according to Scottish Air Quality.

The Climate Change Act which was passed in 2009, made Scotland commit to a 42% reduction in emissions by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050.  The act also states that there should be annual reductions between 2010 and 2050. When talking about “emissions”, it is in relation to greenhouse gases: gases in the atmosphere that are attributable to human activity. Scotland has already surpassed the goverments first target of a 42% reduction far earlier than expected as the countries emissions have fallen by nearly 46% between 1990 and 2014. Although this is great news, 2014 was the first year that the annual emissions target was met since the targets were introduced. It is also thought that the Scottish goverment had little to do with it and that the fall in emissions was due to factors outside of the governments control, including a warmer winter than usual in 2014.

There are still a lot of actions that can be taken to reduce Scotland’s emissions. Individual action is very important, as if everyone contributed we could have a big impact. However the Scottish government need to lead the way by introducing big policies for major emission reductions. Scotland needs to focus on areas like transport where our emissions have remained stalled since 1990. Also on housing, as the emission levels have only been reduced by 1% in this area since the passing of the Act in 2009.

Learning about this act and finding out that our emissions still have to be reduced by almost 40% to reach our next target in 2015, made me realise that a lot of changes are necessary in order to reach this. I used to think that climate change was not something that I had to worry about and that it wasn’t a serious threat. However I now realise what a huge issue it is and how we all need to act on it.

 

My local urban environment is a town called Ayr, which is in South Ayrshire. Ayr is a very large town with a large population, due to the many housing estates. Recently, Ayr’s population has grown, some of this population growth is due to the amount of students moving to Ayr in order to study at the University of the West of Scotland or Ayr college. A short distance away from the University, there is student accommodation which is based on the riverside. Also, recently there has been new student accommodation built in order to meet the demand of all the new students coming to study at Ayr.

Ayr is a very popular tourist destination and tends to attract many people to our open, green  spaces such as  Rozelle, Belleisle and the Low Green , which is situated directly across from the beach. Ayr beach is also very popular, especially in the summer when there is good weather. Many people from Glasgow tend to come to Ayr for the beach

     – Rozelle

  – Belleisle

 

  – Low Green/ Ayr Beach

Today, the Low Green is a major attraction with its large expanse of grassland, which encourages  visitors to picnic, play ball games or just enjoy the views of Ayr. However, during the First World War the Royal Flying Corps were given permission to use the Low Green as a landing strip before they moved to the Racecourse in 1916. The Low Green is also where the Scottish Air Show is held which attracts many people also.

Here is a link showing a video from the Scottish Air Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09mqMSgySTg

 – Air Show

There are many roads throughout Ayr which allows people to come from many different directions. If people do not have cars that they can travel to Ayr with, they can always get a train or a bus which comes and goes directly to and from Ayr on a regular basis. Due to many people coming into Ayr for various different reasons such as work, education or even just shopping, the traffic can be very busy at times. This can cause many problems, especially early in the morning and at night when people are leaving to go home. An area of the road that many people tend to use to get to and from Ayr, is the Whitletts roundabout which is always very busy and people have argued that it is a very dangerous roundabout.

In South Ayrshire, there are 8 secondary schools, 41 primary schools, and 2 special schools managed by the Council. This is a large number of schools, which emphasises the amount of people that live in South Ayrshire. At the moment, there is a new £25 million,  Ayr Academy being built just directly across from the University of the West of Scotland in the Craigie Estate. This is planning to be open in August 2017. There are 10 libraries operated in South Ayrshire, the main one being Carnegie in Ayr. There is also a mobile library service.

Within Ayr there is also a police station, a fire station and a hospital. University Hospital Ayr lies on the southern outskirts of Ayr and is the main Accident and Emergency centre for South Ayrshire. Here, there is a newly refurbished Accident and Emergency which is still going on.

There are many shops within Ayr which suit most of the people in the town. In March, 2006 Ayr Central shopping centre was opened. The shopping centre is situated between Ayr Train Station and Ayr High Street and provides parking for around 500 cars. This gives many people the opportunity to do their shopping in Ayr, rather than going to Silverburn or Glasgow centre. The opening of this shopping centre also gave many people jobs. There are also large supermarket branches based within Ayr, including: Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl. There are also other things in Ayr that you can attend such as the citadel leisure centre, which has a swimming pool, a gym and lots of fitness classes. There is also an Odeon and a Gaitey theatre in Ayr which is not only good for children, but also for adults.

  – Ayr Central Shopping Centre

  – Odeon Cinema

 – Gaitey Theatre

 – Citadel Leisure Centre

 

References:

http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/about/ayr

http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/parks/

 

 

 

I live in a small town called Bellshill in North Lanarkshire. It is a very old town with records dating back to 1654 where quarry workers settled in a small village. Bellshill has always been an industrial town with many mines up until 1953, it is also just under 4 miles from Ravenscraig which was once the largest hot strip steel mil in Western Europe.

Bellshill, like most small villages in North Lanarkshire, does not have much to offer in terms of leisurely places to visit or shop. The town has a library, a leisure centre and two supermarkets. The town has always had a few cafes and pubs but has recently opened two quite successful restaurants given their location, one of which just recently won an award for being the best mediterranean establishment in Scotland. Back in 1958, Bellshill changed their two-ward hospital into a massive two building maternity. This was the first in the whole Lanrkshire area and I quite often find like myself, many of my friends and family were born there. However the maternity was closed in 2001 and demolished in 2003 to make way for new housing developments, which is actually where I am currently living. I also live next to the Bellshill industrial estate, one of the two in Bellshill, so I do not live in a very green part of Bellshill.

Bellshill has many roads, two sides of the town are surrounded my motorways, which are currently having major work done causing in a lot of traffic, or connecting towns Motherwell and Uddingston.

The town does cover a small part of Strathclyde County Park as well as Hamilton and Motherwell. The park covers 1.5 square miles and is centred around a loch. Sadly this loch is artificial as it is simply a flooded mining village from 1970, parts of the loch are unaccessible due to wiring underneath the water. I do not think Bellshill is very green and highly polluted due to its industrial past.

The town has a train station which always has direct trains running to and from Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverly which is very handy and useful. The town also has a good bus service with the two biggest bus services in Lanarkshire running through it. As I mentioned Bellshill falls in Strathclyde park which means its easy to walk or cycle to Hamilton or Motherwell avoiding roads and motorways. I tend to travel to most places by car or train. There currently is a lot of work being done to the motorways A8 and M74 surrounding Bellshill with many road closures and route changes which is causing a lot of congestion and confusion amongst drivers, in the mornings especially.

I do not believe Bellshill is very urban at all. However recent developments such as the new restaurants and housing I do believe this can change. The town should possibly open more shops and leisure places such as a cinema etc.

Theme: Environment Urban Environment Plants and Living Things

Key Learning:    Environment In the lecture with Louise, we were asked to define “environment”. We were also asked how we felt about the environment and what we knew about it. From this lecture I learned that the  environment surrounds us in our everyday lives and it can come under the categories of land, buildings, natural spaces, air, water and weather. In terms of sustainability, it has synonymous with nature, including it’s surroundings, community and people. It also enhances human’s relationships with nature. Following up on the lecture with Louise, we were involved in a workshop which resulted in us going outside and being ‘Nature Detectives’. We were provided with sheets with different aspects of nature on them, such as: bugs, birds, leaves and lichen. With these sheets we went away in groups trying to identify all of these different parts of nature. I must admit that I was shocked to see how many different birds there were flying about or the variety of different leaves that were lying around, considering I am in that environment almost everyday. Also from this workshop I was able to gain information and ideas  about what I could do to teach nature to children both inside and outside of the classroom.   Urban Environment  From the lecture, I gathered that our urban environment is constantly growing. Urban populations account for 82% of the UK total. The urban environment can create environmental pressure as cities are responsible for more than 70% of carbon emissions. However, sometimes it can generally have a positive effect on our physical environment. For example, it can help our physical, career and social development. It can also contribute to lifelong care and resources in our area. During this lecture, we were asked to provide a blog about our own urban environment. On here I will provide pictures, statistics and other important information about my urban environment and what benefits it brings to the area.   Plants and Living Things In the workshop with Andrew, we focused a lot on Hyrdoponics. This is a method in which plants are grown without the soil, rather they are grown in units with water containing nutrients. The name “Hyrdroponics” comes from ancient Greek where hydros means water and ponos means work. We compared this way of growing plants to the natural way of growing them and identified advantages and disadvantages of both methods. There were two activities in this workshop that focused on Hydroponics. One in which we simply watched a video about plant growth and answered questions on it and one practical activity where we used two bottles with different nutrients in them in order to compare the end result of the plant growth.  Again I gathered some ideas, mostly practical about what I could do to teach children about plants and living things, both inside and outside the classroom

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice: I must admit that due to it being very early in the module, I feel that what we done in both the lecture and the workshops has not made a significant impact on my views/lifestyle/practices of environment. However, so far I have found this module interesting as I was able to learn more about my surrounding environment and I hope that I will be able to further develop my knowledge throughout the rest of the trimester I feel that a view of mine that has definitely changed is the idea of participating in practical activities outdoors. Previously, I would have thought that going outdoors was a bad idea as I thought that it consisted of getting dirty and wet. However, I realise that teaching children about the environment, outdoors is a more effective and realistic way of allowing them to understand about it as it gives them a feel of what the environment is and what exists within it.

Areas of interest to explore further/develop: From the themes that we have studied so far I identified that an area that I would like to further develop is Hydroponics. During Andrew’s workshop we looked into Hydroponics, which I briefly discussed previously. Prior to this workshop I had never heard of this before. However, I feel that after just one workshop I had gained quite a bit of knowledge about what Hydroponics are and how they are different from natural plant growth. In order to further explore on this topic, I intend to do some background reading on it as I would like to find out how Hydroponic units work and what sort of variables and nutrients they need in order to grow.

Key Learning

• Having completed my blog post on the urban environment, I now understand what makes up my own urban environment such as types of buildings, green spaces, air quality and population density…
• I have also reflected on how I feel about these different elements in my town and local area. I now have a greater awareness about the pros and cons of my own urban environment. I found learning about the different historical buildings in Kilwinning especially interesting as I did not know much about them prior to this blog.This is important in sustainable development as I believe this awareness of where you live and your own environment make you care more about it. This should inspire you to make greener choices and want to look after where you live.
• I am also aware of the importance of urban environments. They make up 82% of where the total UK population lives. Urban  environments are helping to support a growing population as the UK population has grown by 18.7% since 1984.
• During the workshops I learned about Hydroponics which I had previously never heard of. Hydroponics do not use soil, and is a method of growing healthy plants in places where it would not otherwise be possible. It does not take up much space and requires little water. It is a way of providing food for a growing population while still conserving water. I am also in the middle of an experiment that I started in the workshop that would allow children to learn and engage with hydroponics.
• I have also participated in a number of different activities, many of which promoted outdoor learning, in the workshops that I would now feel confident in leading with school pupils.
• I understand my responsibility as a future teacher to educate children about the importance of sustainable development and looking after our environment. We are currently using 50% more resources on our planet than Earth can sustain. According  to the Scottish government, education is vital in order to progress towards making our society and world a greener place and to change people’s attitudes towards the environment around them. (2012)
• I have also learned about the progress Scotland has made in education towards becoming a greener place. Scotland has one of the most successful Eco-schools programme in the world. 98% of local authority schools participated in the programme and 45% who participated were awarded the Green Flag.

Impact On My Views/Practice

During the workshops on 16th September I realised the significance of outdoor learning. While studying “The Environment” theme and completing tasks such as finding out what different trees, birds, insects and lichens there were around the university campus, actually being outdoors really enhanced the experience. While arguably the tasks could have been completed in a classroom  I do not believe it would have been as effective. Being outside allows you to use your senses and it makes take notice of your environment and what is actually around you. This awareness of the different plants and animals around you makes you care about it more. I think that taking children outside and actually experiencing their environment is crucial when promoting sustainable development. It will encourage them to make greener choices, be more passionate about the environment and just enjoy being outside.

Areas of Interest to Explore Further/Develop

• I realise that I need to continue to develop my confidence in science generally in order to teach it effectively.
• I want to learn more about what schools are doing to promote sustainable development in Scotland.

Theme: The Environment

Key Learning:

After this week I now have a more in depth knowledge on what sustainability is and understand why we need to educate and show children just how important it is. Although  the overuse of resources has improved living standards in many countries, it is also damaging our living systems. We need to find a way where people can live a good quality life without damaging the quality of life of future generations. (Scottish Government, 2012) This really made me think about how our actions today can impact peoples quality of life years from now.

Learning about the environment, has made me see how big a topic this is and how many different issues it covers. Before when I thought about the environment I immediately associated it with nature and recycling. I now understand that it is so much more than this and focuses not just on our surroundings but also the community, people and human’s relationships with nature.

Studying the urban environment highlighted to me how harmful these large cities can be. They not only account for 70% of carbon emissons but also keep buliding on more and more of our natural landscape. However whilst reading the EEA Extract on Urban Environment I realised that although urban environments cause a lot of damage they also have many benefits. Cities are the centre of Europes economy and where the majority of our wealth comes from. Also the ‘proximity of people, businesses and services provides opportunities to build a more resource- efficient Europe.’

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice:

I enjoyed the outdoor activities we completed during one of our workshops as it is not something I would normally do. It made you look up and examine the world around you and see things that you would normally miss. After this week I now see the benefits of children learning about the environment.  I think it would be beneficial to children as it would allow them to explore their local environment and develop natural curiosity about places. Aswell as helping them to build positive attitudes and a global perspective. This topic is now an area that I would want to teach whilst out at schools as I think its very interesting and has so many possibilities of different activities and ways to teach it.