Learning for Sustainability – Page 3 – Learning for Sustainability

Global Citizenship Primary Conference

The national recommendations on learning for sustainability (LfS) require all practitioners to embed LfS in their everyday values and practice. SCOTDEC is hosting a free one day conference on Thursday 14^th May, entitled ‘Global Citizenship Matters’. It is aimed at primary practitioners and leaders, providing a space to share, reflect and network. Practical workshops including storytelling, numeracy, health, sustainable living and rights and participation will provide an opportunity to explore a range of global contexts and LfS themes and approaches.

Click here for further details and booking information.

John Muir Graphic Novel – Teaching Resources Available

Will your school be celebrating John Muir Day on the 20th April? Looking for resources to explore the life of the “Father of our National Parks”? A graphic novel based upon the life of John Muir and produced by the Scottish Book Trust is available to download. Teaching support notes and pupil activities across all curricular areas also accompany the book. Muir’s story is brought to life in a new way, and the novel is intended to develop a deeper understanding and awareness of the natural environment and the importance of protecting wild places.

For further information on the John Muir Award click here.

‘Our Environment’ competition deadline extended.

The ‘Our Environment Competition’ is a great way of engaging young people with their local environment and conservation issues.

Children identify and collect information about an issue in their local environment, collate the information and propose a solution.

Submit your entry as a presentation, poster, leaflet, video or photo storyboard – or maybe you can think of another creative way.

Have you already been working on an environmental project? You can use what you have found out and produced for this competition!

The winning entry will get £1000!

Find out more here.

http://www.environment.scotland.gov.uk/get-involved/the-big-discussion/

After much interest the closing date has been extended to Friday April 10th.

Opening Up Great Learning: Learning for sustainability

Education Scotland has published the second paper in its Opening Up Great Learning series. This paper examines what great learning for sustainability (LfS) looks like. It demonstrates how meeting national LfS recommendations can enable schools, early learning and childcare settings to achieve great outcomes.

The paper also provides a range of Career-long Professional Learning activities to support whole school dialogue and strategic development of LfS.

Click here for further information and support on learning for sustainability.

Developing your outdoor learning space

It can be challenging to find fresh and interesting approaches to learning when consumed by the daily business of education. Even when there is time to find alternative approaches, having the support and space to implement it thoughtfully in your context can also be tricky.

The national recommendations on learning for sustainability (LfS) and the GTCS professional standards set out clear expectations of practitioners demonstrating LfS in their practice. The recommendations also make clear that learners should have an opportunity for contact with nature in their grounds on a daily basis and throughout the seasons through provision of green space for outdoor learning and play (Recommendation 4.1).

A new case study from the Children and Families team at Education Scotland offers an inspiring insight into how one early years establishment has developed a high-quality outdoor learning environment. The video and reflective questions that accompany it provide an excellent stiumulus for professional dialogue. This dialogue and the activites and action points that stem from it are exactly the kind of meaningful examples of CLPL referred to in the LfS report. Through engaging in a thougtful, reflective and focussed professional discussion of exisiting innovative practice, we can move another step closer to ensuring that learning for sustainability is “experienced in a transformative way by every learner in Scotland”.

Earth Hour 2015

Earth Hour 2015 takes place this Saturday (March 28) when people around the world are encouraged to switch off their lights for one hour from 20:30 to 21:30 as a symbolic gesture of support for global action on climate change.

Organised by WWF, Earth Hour is an annual international event involving hundreds of millions of people who care about our planet.

In 2014, Earth Hour in Scotland included landmarks such as Edinburgh Castle, the Forth Rail Bridge, the Falkirk Wheel, Stirling Castle, Scottish Parliament and the Glasgow Emirates. Internationally 162 countries took part and included iconic buildings such as the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building.

All local authority areas in Scotland took part, as did 21 other public bodies and national organisations. Many of these agencies, including the Scottish Government, have signed up to show their support again this year.

Earth Hour presents an excellent opportunity to connect the curriculum to events going on beyond the classroom. It provides a reminder of how concerted local action can have far reaching global consequences. Learners may be aware of stories in the national media about the environmental impact of climate change and the measures society puts in place to try and address it. These issues lend themselves to exploration through many curricular areas. They provide rich, real world contexts that allow learners to make meaningful connections between their everyday choices and the long term sustainability of our world. These types of learning experiences are at the very heart of great learning for sustainability.

Click here for further support and resources linked to Earth Hour and the wider subject of sustainability.

Primary pupils get animated about sustainability

Pupils from Kinnaird Primary School, Larbert, are sharing their learning for sustainability work with the wider world. Gemma Douglas, principal teacher, and Brenda Bennie, class teacher, have been using WOSDEC global storyline resource, Our Crop, Our Land with their Primary 5 and 6 classes to explore the issues of food security and land grabbing. Their animation on the use and production of Palm Oil explores the far reaching consequences of our everyday choices. It has already had hundreds of hits on YouTube much to the excitement of the illustrators, animators and voiceover artists from Kinnaird. Great work team!

For more on this story and a chance to see the children’s animation, click here.

Outdoor learning boosts engagement

Teachers who bring their pupils into the outdoors find it makes their learning more enjoyable, challenging, active and collaborative according to a report published this week by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).

The study shows that outdoor learning in school and pre-schools has increased since Curriculum for Excellence was introduced but that further increases could be made. The survey of nursery, primary and secondary schools looked at over 1000 outdoor lessons and compared results from surveys in 2006 and 2014.

Learning in green areas like parks, gardens, wildlife areas and woodland, as well as on residential outdoor trips, particularly increased children’s engagement and enriched the learning experience in many ways. Overall, the study found that there was an opportunity to make more use of local green places to give children time outdoors at little or no cost.

The report, written by the University of Stirling, was commissioned by partners Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland, Education Scotland, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority and Keep Scotland Beautiful.

Visit Education Scotland’s Outdoor Learning site for further support in taking learning outdoors.

Global Citizenship Matters – Primary CLPL

WO SDEC and the Global Learning Programme Scotland have organised a free professional learning event for primary teachers entitled Global Citizenship Matters: Rights, Global Citizenship and Learning for Sustainability.

Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, and Ellen Doherty, General Teaching Council Scotland, will deliver keynote speeches.

When: 15 May 2015

Where: TouchBase, Sense Scotland, 43 Middlesex Street, Glasgow G41 1EE

The conference aims to support teachers in making the links between rights, global citizenship and learning for sustainability by providing:

an opportunity to develop professional understanding of and confidence around learning for sustainability
practical classroom tools to enhance learning & teaching for global citizenship
space to share and reflect with colleagues

Practical workshops will cover:

Children’s rights and participation
Assessing global citizenship
Values
Planning for learning for sustainability (LfS)

To reserve a place contact: wosdec@btconnect.com

Global Learning Programme Scotland

Overheard conversation between two young learners in a Scottish primary school this week – Learner 1: “I want to go to the rainforest and tell them to stop cutting it down.” Learner 2: “Don’t go yet. You’re too wee. Wait till we’re bigger and we’ll both go.” The potential of where this conversation and these aspirations will lead to is intriguing. Many learners are making connections between rich curricular contexts for learning and their own capacity to engage with the ever changing world around them.

To engage our learners in learning for sustainability requires teachers who can confidently weave a number of aspects, including global citizenship, sustainable development education, outdoor learning and children’s rights into their practice.

Global Learning Programme Scotland (GLP-S) supports the development of global citizenship through the curriculum and offers free professional learning for teachers. Click here to find out about the range of CLPL on offer from the six Scottish regional Development Education Centres.

You can also sign up for their online global citizenship magazine Stride at www.stridemagazine.org.uk

For more information contact Rachel Hamada at ideasforuminfo@gmail.com