Global Citizenship

Two primary schools in the Highlands have featured on the BBC website for environmental aspects which aim to make the schools more sustainable by design.

Acharacle school is being built with many environmentally-friendly features including a wind turbine for power and rain water to assist toilet flushing.

And Glenelg school has fitted solar panels to the roof of its pupil bike shed to harness renewable energy, as part of Highland Council’s commitment to energy management.

Scottish secondary school pupils involved in the Eco Schools Scotland programme ran a conference at the Scottish Parliament this week, at which Schools Minister Keith Brown was the invited guest speaker. Events such as these provide a means of showcasing the interest and action of young people concerned about environmental issues such as Climate Change.

A BBC web article “Malawi windmill boy with big fans” provides an update on the Malawian teenager who built electric windmills from junk to provide an electricity supply for his village. A book telling his story, entitled “The Boy who harnessed the Wind“, is available and may inspire others to innovate.

Win a Flip Camera for your school

Learning and Teaching Scotland is currently developing a new Primary Climate Change website. It will bring together a series of web-based activities which will allow pupils at First and Second Stages to explore and learn about climate change, how it will affect them and what they can do about it.

We are looking to have some demonstration clips built into the site. These will include recording weather, the water cycle, movement of warm and cold air, and adaptations to change. We are challenging Secondary school pupils to come up with innovative and creative approaches to this.

The shorts can be up to a maximum of 1 min and can be shot on anything from a camera phone to home video or professional equipment, or can be done in animation.

Contributions must be emailed in or uploaded to the GLOW SDE group by 04 December 2009. All will be exhibited on the GLOW SDE group and the most suitable, from an educational point of view, will be incorporated into the Primary Climate Change website.

Flip cameras will be awarded to those schools whose clips are used on the Climate Change website.

For more information on the experiments and activities please contact Helen Winton, H.Winton@LTScotland.org.uk

The Prince’s Rainforests Project for Schools aims to raise awareness and stimulate discussion in schools about the importance of rainforests and their role in mitigating Climate Change. The project is running two competitions for pupils which offer opportunities for creative activity.

The ‘Sony World Photography Awards / Prince’s Rainforests Project Schools’ competition invites pupils to take and submit a photograph on one of four themes, such as ‘what climate change means to you’.  The contest website has full details, and the closing date is 23rd October 2009.

And the ‘Frog competition’  offers the chance to design a ‘look’ and colour scheme for a large fibreglass sculpture Frog. Closing date is 15th October.

Here’s a great opportunity for school students (and in fact anyone) to communicate effectively about an international theme. The ‘1 minute to save the world’ competition website asks people to make a one-minute video which clearly expresses an opinion about the issue of Climate Change, and then upload the video to the website for others to view and vote on. The wide range of video already on the site, and the different approaches used by the filmmakers, makes for an illuminating way of raising public awareness and participation in Sustainable Development.

Full details are on the web, with a closing date of 30th October for submission of entries. Three finalists will be chosen to show their films at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December. Wouldn’t it be  great if a Scottish school entry was one of them?

A BBC web story “Global youth pool climate ideas” reports on an international summer camp in Denmark which enabled hundreds of European teenagers to work together on environmental action. The best ideas generated at the ‘Bright Green Youth’ event will be presented to the world conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December.

WWF Scotland has also published the report and outcomes from its 2008 Childrens’ Climate Change project, which brought together young Scots to debate this issue.

 The Eco-Schools programme in Scotland now has 800 schools which have achieved their ‘Green Flag’ as recognition of their commitment to the environment. Port Charlotte Primary School in Islay is the latest to demonstrate their excellent work in this way.

Learning and Teaching Scotland is committed to supporting Sustainable Development Education for Scottish teachers. This October we will run a residential weekend ‘retreat’ at Glenmore Lodge in the Highlands, and participating teachers will spend time exploring areas and issues relevant to SDE and tackling how these can be presented to pupils through curricular teaching and interdisciplinary work. Initial details are on our website. 

LTS is also working to organise a group study visit on SDE for secondary teachers, under our SCIPD international study visits programme, which is likely to be to Sweden. Further details will be posted in this blog when the arrangements are complete.

The latest news, events and developments from Citizenship, which now covers Confucius Classrooms, International Education and Sustainable Development Education.

Currie Community High School has won the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy. Its approach includes a wind turbine to generate power for the school, and a variety of energy conservation measures to reduce the building’s consumption. A BBC story gives more detail.

Congratulations to all the winners, and the participants, in the 2009 Scottish Education Awards. The Awards ceremony was held last week in Glasgow, and a list of the winners and finalists is on the SEA website.

I’ll highlight the winners associated with developing global citizenship in Scottish education:

- Perth High School won in the ‘International Schools’ category

- St Paul’s High School in Glasgow won the ‘Active Citizenship’ category

- St Leonard’s Nursery School in Edinburgh won the ‘Greener Schools’ category

- Iochdar Primary School in South Uist won the ‘Homecoming’ award