Sustainability measures in Champagne, France, wine region

This interdisciplinary approach using STEM/ STE(A)M subjects involves the learners being ‘hooked’ by a plea from the head of their Council to design a new school sustainably. Ideas of fair trading and fair testing are explored in the resource. This resource comprises five sessions: auditing your school’s current sustainable features, learning about fair trading using: a maths building game, designing and then making a sustainable school t-shirt (fast fashion) building a windmill with easy materials applying the fair test principle in which scenario the windmill works better. This resource includes: • A teacher block overview for the five sessions (Auditing your School’s sustainability, Fair Trade building, Sustainable School Clothing, Building Wind turbines, Fair test on a wind turbine) • Learner log-book (learner planning sheet) • Teacher guide for each session with any associated material [worksheet (lesson 1), ppt slide (lesson 2), hyperlinks] • Learner ‘hook’ letters (This can be customised to your situation) Learning outcomes in the Curriculum for Excellence TCH 2-02b, TCH 2-04b, TCH 2-06a, TCH 2-07a, TCH 2-09a, MNU 2-10b, MNU 2-20b, MTH 2-16c, SCN 2-04a, SCN 2-20b, SOC 2-08a, SOC 2-20a, EXA 2-06a, LIT 2-02a, LIT 2-07a. Sustainable schools – an IDL STEM design challenge, has been created as a teaching resource for the City of Edinburgh Council’s ‘Curiosity Club’, an Intervention Strategy initiative, aimed at promoting regular attendance in primary schools. This resource was created as part of the GeoScience Outreach Course, which is a 4th year undergraduate course in the School of GeoSciences aiming to provide students with the opportunity to develop their own science communication and engagement project. Click here to view and download Sustainable Schools on TES This resource was created by Nicole Campbell, as part of the Geoscience Outreach course. Adapted by Kay Douglas and Charlie Farley. Unless otherwise stated, all content…

On 20 May 2019, the University of Exeter declared an environment and climate emergency.

This was in response to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others about the impacts of global warming and pressure from staff and students to take action. The university felt a particular responsibility as it has many academics working on combatting climate change.

They may be considered an eco-friendly way to generate energy, but wind turbines pose a major threat to migrating birds, which are at high risk of colliding with the giant blades while in flight.  Now a new study has identified the collision ‘hotspots’ where migrating birds such as owls, swans and eagles are most at risk of being killed by turbines or power lines.  The researchers have produced a map, revealing that birds are more likely to get too close to turbines and power lines on key migration routes, on the coast and at key breeding grounds.  Many such spots lie in Mediterranean regions including the South of France, Southern Spain and the Moroccan coastline – such as around the Strait of Gibraltar.  They are also vulnerable in Eastern Romania, on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and along Germany’s Baltic coast.  Researchers say in light of their findings that power lines should not be built in places where birds risk colliding with turbines as they migrate.

IBM’s foray into the blockchain ecosystem is deepening with a new partnership to track supply chains in the textile and fashion industries.

The Armonk, New York-based tech giant announced Monday that it’s teaming up with German textile manufacturer Kaya&Kato to develop a blockchain network that tracks the origin of fabrics used in the fashion industry. The new application will allow Kaya&Kato’s suppliers and customers to identify where their fabrics are processed, as well as understand each step of the production and distribution processes