Just a thought -
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
November 23, 2011
November 12, 2011
Access to research
One of the hardest things I find being an ESS teacher is that so often in a school library, staff or faculty room that the pedagogical journals that you may come across have very little focus on teaching a course with a foothold in ecology and environmental science. It is often possible to find journals dealing with research in science education per se that sometimes carry articles of direct interest, but rare to find ones that are specific. A former school that taught in did subscribe to Environmental Education Research traditionally the place you went to look, but a subscription to a very specific journal is an extremely expensive luxury for many schools.
So is there anything out there?
November 11, 2011
No not the fact that its called Rainbow Warrior
Greenpeace has started sea trails of the new Rainbow warrior vessel. Whether you agree with the aims and methods of GP the one thing that can be said about this new vessel is its efficiency – especially the use of a new sail architecture. Have a read about how ocean travel can become a lot more energy efficient – the Guardian has a nice interactive about this state of art technocentric green ship.
November 7, 2011
What do we teach?
Every now and then I find myself stumbling across a resource that at first sight might not appear brilliant but the more you read the more you find things to firstly just tink about and secondly that are just usable. Teaching Environmental Issues and the Affective Domain is one such resource. From the “On the Cutting Edge – Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty” which I have dabbed backwards and forwards into a few times in the past. Certainly worth taking a look at as like most of the other resources from OTCE it leads to more resources many of which are very adaptable to the ESS classroom.
October 21, 2011
Natural capital with a weird face: Topic 3.2 natural capital and Topic 4 Conservation of biodiversity
It is often to easy to fall back on the same case studies and examples when providing background to students. especially when the questions around Natural capital or conservation come up. It is easy to talk about over fishing in the North Sea or the problems faced by the orangutang. There is plenty written about both in many widely available textbooks. However sometimes the cases that really capture student imagination and bring deep understanding are those a little off the beaten track. Fr me teaching in a semi desert locality anything to do with the inuit and arctic ecosystems are so alien to my students that they really take the ideas onboard.
Australian Geographic – A female pig-nosed turtle, native to the Top End of Australia and Papua New Guinea. (Credit Ricardo França Silva)
Future or not for some!: Topic 6 The issue of global warming
May be with rain falling and cool weather in most of the Northern Hemisphere this summer it becomes easy to dismiss climate change and global warming. However if you live on a pacific atoll like Tuvalu then you live the real problems possibly every day. The Guardia and the BBC have both just run interesting stories about what life is like on this remote island with the fear of climate change a part of daily life, especially when in the grip of a drought that has run for over a year. Imagine only having enough water to just about cook with only a teacup full left over for washing or being the hospital administration that might have to deal with a break out of dysentery . Certainly a very useful case when teaching the topic but maybe more useful when making links back to ToK – the ESS Guide states that the “topic directly and usefully challenges popular views of certainty within the sciences.” but how do you get your knowledge over when you are an tiny population with little wealth and few material resources compared to the big countries?
From the Guardian – Students queue to buy drinks in recycled bottles at Nauti primary school in Funafuti, Tuvalu. Illustration: Alastair Grant/AP
May 2, 2011
Topic 6: What do we really know about our climate?
Teaching ESS in Europe means that when you get to the part of the course dealing with climate change you inevitably have to menton the breakdown of the Gulf stream and Atlantic conveyor. But some recent findings bring back the stark reality that often even in ESS we tend to deal with concepts in discrete little pockets rather than taking a systemal approach at looking at the bigger picture.
The recent finding are from an internnational team of oceanographers monitoring the behaviour of the Agulhas system, a current moving warm waters around the Indian Ocean. So what ha this current got to do with the Gulf Stream? The Agulhas system also impinges upon the Southern Atlantic bring warm waters around the tip of South Africa. The team have suggested from models that as the Gulf Stream weakens this flow increases and can in part make up the differences.
May 1, 2011
Environmental Impact Assessment
Teaching EIA theory is possibly one of the hardest parts of the ESS course if you don’t have a background in it. There are very few really good resources aimed at the level of the Diploma. However UNESCO have a video which asks the question as to if there is merit in an EIA system. In parts it is quite heavy but used in sections can add some real incite into the EIA process
April 4, 2011
Global warming – the Glacier Story
A team headed up by Professor Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University have suggested that mountain glaciers are are melting up to 100 times faster than at any time in the past 350 years. The team of geoscientists from Aberystwyth, Exeter and Stockholm have calculated that since the end of the Little Ice Age about 350 years ago mountain glaciers have lost at least 606 cubic kilometres of ice. Putting this in to perspective this is 5th more water than Lake Erie contains. What has real worried the team though is that the rate has dramatically increased in the last 80 years.
Earth Day:
Earth day is juts around the corner. Well actually its on April the 22nd. Earth day Web
Each year when Earth day comes around or for that matter any of the “green” save the planet day I start to get worried. As firstly THE TEACHER OF ESS, I find that almost automatically I, we , us are seen as the guys who should be taking the lead on letting our colleagues and students know about such days and events.
