Learning for Sustainability – Page 2 – LfS news & CLPL opportunities from Education Scotland

Learning for Sustainability update November 2022

Children issue call to action on Learning for Sustainability and outdoor learning

This latest report from the Children’s Parliament contains a clear call to all educators in all subject areas – our children want to receive their entitlement to Learning for Sustainability including learning about climate change, more frequent opportunities for outdoor learning and contact with nature. These findings echo the findings of other consultations such as the response to Prof Ken Muir’s Report: Putting Learners at the Centre. Hear what our children have to say.

Public consultation for the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment/Hayward Review is now live!

Links to the public consultation can be found below:

Professor Hayward’s Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Professor Hayward’s Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment – public consultation – Scottish Government – Citizen Space

The secretariat are happy to answer any questions that you might have – qualificationsreform@gov.scot.

Join the National Discussion on the Curriculum

https://consult.gov.scot/national-discussion-scottish-education/

The National Discussion was launched at SLF – please get involved and encourage others to respond, especially young people.

Resources are available on the national website: https://consult.gov.scot/national-discussion-scottish-education/

Complete the survey at: https://consult.gov.scot/learning-directorate/national-discussion-on-education/

The conversation is being supported by Scottish Government in partnership with COSLA.

There are a number of live discussion events taking place online on 16 and 23 November, supported by Professors Alma Harris and Carole Campbell.

It is a tight timescale for responding – the National Discussion ends 5/6 December.

Take part in the LfS Scotland event on 7 Nov on the response to the Hayward Review Consultation.

Join the National LfS Practitioner Network

Practitioners with an interest or responsibility for Learning for Sustainability are invited to join the national Learning for Sustainability Network in Teams in Glow. Joining code: O4sj08j.

The network provides an opportunity to connect with like-minded practitioners, hear about latest opportunities and to share approaches, practice, resources and ideas.

SCQF project on Learning for Sustainability qualifications is now officially live and open for submissions.

Through the national LfS Action Plan and with support from Scottish Government, SCQF is seeking to increase the number and range of SCQF credit-rated courses associated with LfS. Organisations across Scotland are being encouraged to submit proposals for new courses that can be SCQF credit-rated.

Details can be found here:

Learning for Sustainability Funded Project 2022/23 | Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (scqf.org.uk)

The closing date for applications is 11 November. If you need any additional information, please get in touch with Nicola Smith: N.smith@scqf.org.uk

Learning for a Sustainable Future

5-week MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)

Join a personal and professional global learning journey towards a sustainable future. This course supports you to reflect, investigate, discuss and develop an informed response to the global challenges that matter to you.

Find out more and sign up here

‘Learning for Sustainability and the Professional Standards’

Learning for Sustainability Scotland are hosting a monthly Drop-In with GTC Scotland

Last Thursday of every month.

Join the Learning for Sustainability conversation. Our monthly Drop-Ins Connect you with other teachers and contributors to collaborate on, inspire, inform and celebrate Learning for Sustainability across your teaching, setting and learning community.

Find out more and sign up here

‘Learning for Sustainability and “Putting Young People at the Centre”’: a round-table discussion for the youth work sector

5 October, 16:00 – 17:00

The Scottish Government and COSLA are launching the ‘most inclusive ever discussion on education in Scotland, with learners playing a key part in decision-making’. In addition, a refresh of the national Learning for Sustainability Action Plan is currently underway. How do we ensure that youth work sector organisations can collaborate to support these important new developments?

Find out more and sign up here

Plastic Pollution Live Lesson, 7-11 November

The Plastic Pollution Live Lessons from Keep Scotland Beautiful offer tailored content for Early Years-P3, P4-P7 and secondary schools.

School Partnerships & Global Learning: CCGL Practitioner Research, 10 November, 16:30

The Development Education Research Centre (DERC) is hosting a second research webinar to introduce and celebrate further research studies produced through the Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) Practitioner Research Fund.

John Muir Award, Wild Places and Education Priorities, 16 November, 16:00

Join the John Muir Trust online to explore how wild places and the John Muir Award can benefit learning and educational priorities in Scotland.

Rights Across the Curriculum: Teaching About, Through and For Rights, 17 November, 16:30

This interactive, two-part course from Scotland’s Development Education Centres will help you to develop a rights-based approach across your teaching, learning and wider school life.

Develop Arts-based Outdoor Learning in your School with Out to Play

Eco Drama’s 2023 Out to Play Residencies Programme is now available to book for primary schools in Glasgow and surrounding areas.

Positive Imaginings: Creative Climate Education

Positive Imaginings from Rowanbank Environmental Arts and Education is a Creative Climate Education Project, which explores children’s imaginings of a positive future in the face of climate change. Expressions of interest are invited from primary schools for their Spring, Summer and Autumn terms 2023.

Introduction to Teaching Sustainability and Climate Action in Schools

Discover the role that learning for sustainability and climate action has to play in tackling the climate crisis. On this four-week course from the University of Glasgow, you’ll delve into the role of education in addressing the current climate crisis.

Dirt Is Good Schools Programme

The Dirt Is Good Schools Programme from Persil and its partners enables young people to take action on the environmental and social causes they care about; planning and delivering a social or environmental project that works towards one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Watch Again: Scottish Learning Festival 2022

The SLF 2022 ‘watch again’ facility is now live with more than 65 seminars, spotlights and satellite events from the two-day conference available to view online; including a range of seminars on Learning for Sustainability and Outdoor learning.

Scottish Junior Forester Award

Outdoor and Woodland Learning (OWL) Scotland are pleased to announce a range of courses this winter on the recently launched Scottish Junior Forester Award. Venues include Abriachan Forest Trust – Inverness, Kinnoul Hill – Perth, Pollok Park – Glasgow and Newbattle Abbey in Dalkeith. The Newbattle and Abriachan courses will cover tree planting and the Glasgow and Perth course will cover tool use.

Get set for COP27 – get involved

COP27 DYW Live Programme

Get set for COP27 – learn about climate change and help develop skills in Scotland’s future workforce. Learning about climate change and sustainability is a pathway to the future; relevant for all future jobs. As part of COP27 Week 2022 DYW Live, Education Scotland and e-Sgoil are excited to offer a range of activities around climate change and its impact on future jobs and future skills.

Collaborating with six industry partners sharing what they are doing to prevent climate change, join us for an industry-led inspiration talk followed by a climate lesson on Teams which can be used to enhance learning from the webinar or as a standalone activity.

14 November

AM – Construction – hear from Built Environment, Smarter Transformation (BE-ST) as they seek to accelerate the built environment’s transition to zero carbon emissions.
PM – Ethical Finance – Shared Interest is an ethical investment organisation which aims to alleviate poverty by helping people in remote and disadvantaged communities, to trade and earn a living.

15 November

AM – Energy transition – Hear from Catapult Offshore Renewable Energy and their plans to harness nature’s energy in sustainable ways.
PM – Sustainable fashion – ACS’ mission is to be the leading enabler of the fashion industry’s circular economy in the UK and Europe.

17 November

AM – Agriculture and Forestry – LANTRA will explain how working the fields, forests and hills can mitigate against climate change.
PM – Transport – Hear how FirstBus is reducing the impact of travel on the planet and creating green jobs in the process.

To find out more and register visit the DYW LIVE COP27 page

The webinars will be recorded and made available afterwards on the e-sgoil webpage.

Live at COP27 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

2-week MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

Starts 7 November

This online course, run by Learning for Sustainability Scotland, will explore global issues during COP27. Be part of the call for collective action.

Find out more and sign up here. Why not engage with our legacy resource – ‘Live at COP26’ – too?

Climate Ambassadors

STEM Learning has created a new subset of STEM Ambassadors called Climate Ambassadors. Employers and organisations can choose to be connected to Climate Ambassadors and filter requests of this type.

Royal Society of Chemistry Take Charge Battery Experiment

To tackle the growing climate crisis, we need to move away from fossil fuels and embrace electrification. A crucial part of this journey is bigger and better batteries; we need them to be a sustainable storage solution to ease our energy transition.

Taking part in the global battery experiment will give you the opportunity to explore the science behind batteries – and why they are such an important part of our bright energy future.

Countdown to COP

Education Scotland’s COP26 legacy materials – recycling, reusing, repurpose materials from last year…because they were so popular and it’s good for the planet to use again!

Scottish Learning Festival – LfS Pathway

The Scottish Learning Festival is free to attend and everyone with an interest in education is welcome to register. This year the programme has around 65 seminars including spotlight sessions offering a fantastic line up of speakers, debates and opportunities for professional learning and networking.

Our programme will once again be held in an amazing 3D virtual venue and you will be able to view the sessions anywhere from any device that has internet access.
You will need to register to access the virtual venue, but you don’t need to pre-register for sessions, all you need to do is explore the programme, decide what you’d like to attend and just join any session of your choice on the day.

Below is a Learning for Sustainability pathway curated for you over the two days of SLF 2022:

Wednesday 21 September 12:30 – 13:15

Learning for Sustainability (LfS), the Professional Standards and you: supporting the learner entitlement to LfS

Explore the new GTC Scotland Learning for Sustainability Hub, and hear from practitioners about how to realise this most vital of themes in your practice and the wider life of your setting. Betsy King

Wednesday 21 September 14:00 – 14:45

Designing Our Outdoor World

Join Nils Aksnes and Keira Anderson (Make + Do Design Studio) and Madeleine Conn (Cultural Coordinator, Argyll and Bute Council) to explore how creative approaches to outdoor spaces impacted on learners’ mental health and wellbeing in the Designing Our Outdoor World primary project.

Taking the climate and biodiversity crises seriously: learners and practitioners taking action and making a difference

Hear directly from Allan’s Nursery, Dunblane Primary and St Modan’s Secondary Additional Support Needs provision on how they are working together to realise learners’ entitlement for Learning for Sustainability and help combat climate change.
Participants will be inspired and encouraged to take action in their setting.
Danny Smith, Jennifer Hutton, Iona McCroary & Vicky Cunningham plus learners and climate ambassadors

Wednesday 21 September 15:45 – 16:30

Outdoor Education, Equity, Evaluation & Impact for Learners – providing an outdoor experience that is available to all Scottish Young People
Explore a definition of wellbeing through Outdoor Education, around feeling good and functioning well and helping young people to flourish. With discussion of research and impact on learners. Martin Davidson

Thursday 22 September 10:00 – 10:45

Developing Successful Approaches to Outdoor Learning

This session will hear from two groups of settings and the collaboration that took place on their journey to develop outdoor learning. Settings have developed outdoor learning champions and shared their process of change including skills audits, confidence and spaces and practice leading to action plans, reflection and impact.
Rowena Nursery, Glasgow City Council and Flowerbank Early Childhood Centre, Craighead Country Nursery, East Ayrshire

RHET CLPL Opportunity

10th September Teacher Training

The Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) are offering all primary and early level practitioners a free face to face CLPL opportunity on 10^th September from 10 – 12 at the Pavilion Ingliston, Edinburgh.

The CLPL session will provide participants with the opportunity to:

Develop an understanding and appreciation of STEM in food and farming
Upskill around The Journey of Food, covering farm to fork, sustainability and influences on consumer choices

Including a number of curricular linked activities; participants will be provided with the resources required to deliver them in the classroom.

Book your place here

Thousands of learners benefit from outdoor learning

More than 6,000 young people in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland have benefited from a project to encourage learning outdoors.

The Learning in Local Greenspace project has supported 115 schools across 12 local authorities to use nearby green spaces, such as parks and woodlands, for outdoor learning.

Led by NatureScot, this collaborative project worked with more than 20 partner organisations with the aim of embedding outdoor learning in schools, with more than 500 teachers taking part.

Learning outdoors has been shown to improve the health and wellbeing of pupils, and can also have a positive impact on behaviour and engagement, in turn leading to better attainment.

An evaluation report found that, as a result of the project, the percentage of teachers taking learning outdoors in their local greenspace regularly rose from 28% to 49%, while teacher confidence in doing so increased from 54% to 85%.

Following the project more than a third (37%) felt that their pupils had a good connection to nature, compared to just 19% previously. The percentage of teachers who believed their pupils’ engagement in learning outdoors was good or excellent also increased from 56% to 79%.

The project also developed a range of free resources for outdoor learning that are available to all via the Learning in local greenspace project webpages.

Supporting learners during conflict and war

This webinar will provide opportunities for practitioners working in a range of sectors to discuss how they can support children and young people who may be anxious about what they see or hear in the news.

Target Audience – the target audience for this event is professionals within the Education, Creative and Cultural Sectors in Scotland. To register for the event please enter either a school/establishment/Glow/local authority, a company or personal email address.

Wednesday 23 March 2022

16:00 – 17:15

Learning for Sustainability Scotland news

Learning for a Sustainable Future MOOC starts 14 March

Join a personal and professional global learning journey towards a sustainable future. On this highly regarded five-week open-access online course, you’ll develop an informed personal response to local and global challenges as you’re supported to take positive actions. What on Earth could be more important?

LfS Scotland Story Sharing

At the start of Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022 the new LfS Scotland Story Sharing space has now been launched. You can read stories of transformational learning from members of Learning for Sustainability Scotland and you are invited to upload your own LfS stories to this open-access space. Get in touch at enquiries@lfsscotland.org if you need any advice or assistance with this.

Global Perspectives on the SDGs and Rights 16 March

This course, developed by the Development Education Centres in partnership with colleagues from Nepal and Nigeria, will examine the development of the UNCRC, explore some of the language within Rights and share ways to introduce Rights to learners through the SDGs, highlighting examples of good practice.

Eco-Schools Live Lesson, 21 March

Eco-Schools are offering a live lesson all about Litter & Waste, with special guests from Scottish SPCA and Auchindrain Historic Township. Join with your class or Eco-Committee for a full morning of workshops, and on 25th March for an assembly to celebrate your work.

1.5 Max

The 1.5 Max Summit brought together 11 Scottish schools together with schools from Mozambique, Nepal and Malawi to learn more about the climate emergency. Discover how the voices of young people who had been affected by plastic pollution created the most powerful catalyst for climate action within Bell Baxter High School in Fife.

Rebooting Compassionate Values

This month’s Global Dimension class activity explores the theme of Compassionate Values. The story of The Child and the Starfish is used to frame the impact compassion can have on ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

Climate Action Guide: Thinking Critically, Collaborating Sustainably, Acting Justly

The I-CAN Project is developing the knowledge and skills of teachers to support work in the classroom. Your starting point is to download this practical Climate Action Guide and start to explore what is meant by ‘Thinking critically, collaborating sustainably and acting justly’.

Unfold The Power of Plants: Free, Double-sided Poster from The Open University

The landmark BBC Natural History series ‘Green Planet’, presented by Sir David Attenborough, is an immersive portrayal of an unseen, inter-connected world, full of remarkable new behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes in the plant world. Root yourself deeper into the world of plants with this free poster.

Join The Regenerators today!

Whether at home or school, The BBC Bitesize Regenerators aim to inspire children and teenagers to live a greener life and encourage others to protect the planet.

Outdoor Education Recovery Fund Report

The £500,000 Outdoor Education Recovery Fund was launched in 2021 by the Scottish Government to widen access to outdoor learning and offer vital support for Scotland’s education recovery. The creation of the fund recognised the role played by all forms of outdoor learning as part of the government’s broader approach to recovery from the COVID pandemic.

The fund enabled youth work and education providers to facilitate outdoor learning experiences with the aim of supporting the following outcomes for young people:

Improved physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Development of skills for life.
Improved learner engagement.
Progress in related Curriculum for Excellence areas and subjects.
Improved connection with and appreciation of, nature and place.

Programme Deliverables:

45 funded programmes were delivered across Scotland between May and December 2021
Nearly 2,000 sessions and 12,000 activity hours were provided
8,514 young people and 558 teachers participated
Young people from a range of formal education settings were involved, predominantly primary schools

Download the full Covid-19 Outdoor Education Recovery Fund report.

Free online course ‘Learning for a Sustainable Future’

Free online course from Learning for Sustainability Scotland ‘Learning for a Sustainable Future’ starts 14th March.

This five-week course is designed for and open to anyone with an interest in, or remit for, sustainability. The course is supported by skilled facilitators and has an additional strand for those working in formal or informal education, who want to bring some of the activities and issues covered in the course into their own practice.

Full details & how to register here.

Enjoying the Outdoors – Scottish Outdoor Access Code Resources for schools

Scotland’s mountains, coasts, forests and green spaces are a fantastic resource that can shape people’s lives and it’s vital that everyone knows how to enjoy the outdoors while respecting nature and the interests of others. The key to this is the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.

Nature Scot created Activity Guides for schools in 2007. The guides include posters and are available for two age ranges: 8-12 and 12-14. These are available as PDF’s from the Nature Scot website.

During 2019-2021 visits to our countryside and greenspaces rose and so did incidences of poor behaviour. Visitors often knew that they had rights of access but were unaware of how their behaviour might impact upon others and how to act responsibly.

Now there is an opportunity to revisit and improve these resources for schools and to reemphasise to a young audience that with their access rights comes responsibility.

Your help would be appreciated in undertaking this task. If you have used (or can review) these packs please let Nature Scot know what they should keep and what was most useful for you.

What would you like to see added?
What format would be most/more useful for you to use in the classroom?
Have you any suggestions for activities you have or would use with a class that could be shared with other teachers?
Would you be able to assist in a further review as Nature Scot develop new resources?

Please get in touch directly with Susan.webster@nature.scot.