Climate in Geography A Level

LIGC sponsored a recent seminar, organised by the ECI, on how climate change can be taught effectively withing the existing British A level Geography curriculum. Prof Martin Evans was involved in creating the latest syllabus that teachers are currently using. Although there isn’t much in the specification about climate, and curriculum changes happen far too slowly for this to be a sensible area for climate action, Martin explained to an audience of teachers that in fact they have a great deal of freedom to include climate in a large proportion of the modules.

There were lots of great ideas in Martin’s talk, and the teachers seems suitably enthused if slightly daunted. Geography is arguably the fastest changing subject, which means that teachers are always challenged to keep up with latest information, data, case studies etc. They have to cover a huge breadth of material. And they are probably the teachers most in the firing line for climate questions from students. There is a certainly an opportunity for them to become leaders in climate solutions by arming themselves with appropriate knowledge, resources and lesson plans, but they probably need some support.

LIGC is offering local teachers support in climate understanding through the one hour sessions we have trialled with IB teachers. We have also partnered with an Oxford teacher and climate activist to create the Teachers for Future Oxfordshire Facebook page for local teachers to swap ideas. We are highlighted the ECI’s intiative Maths for Planet Earth which although created for maths teachers, shows how an existing curriculum can be adapted to teach new material. And we are encouraging teachers and schools to look at EduCCate Global, the UN accredited online climate training for teachers. This is 20+ hours but those who have done it feel it has been very empowering.

A positive outcome for geography as a school subject might be that after years of being one of the less popular subjects, students might begin to see its value for their lives and their careers.

Student poetry inspired by Wytham Woods

On our weekend in Wytham Woods we and the students wrote a few words of poetry in response to finding and learning about fungi, and then standing still and looking closely as something in the woods for a few minutes. The woods were in full autumn colours, everything was wet, and there were amazing fungi everywhere. These are what the students wrote that day.

Battlefield

The flora’s fallen brethren

Consumed by the unseen scent

Ready to set the cycle again

Old and fallen trees, decaying in the woods

It was dying, but, it was helping new lives

To appear, small twenty mushrooms.

Nutty, wise

Lucky disguise.

Caring, strong

Daring song.

Three little mushrooms living off the dead,

With nowhere to grow but up ahead

Three little mushrooms living among the dead,

It’s a graveyard someone once said…

Branch like fungi, grey with a narrow roof surfacing gills

Existed in a colony exuding a nutty scent.

A broken tree trunk with red mushrooms growing out of it’s broken end. 

“lying broken detached by my roots although unknown red raw roots are growing beneath me.”

Cream and brown splothches like bubbles rising skywards

Shortly to fall earthwards as the tree trunk dissolves

Fungi oasis in a birch stump. Thriving where the tree is no longer. Silent in the cracking, dripping, plinking, wish-ing soundscape.

Fungi littered around you

Green splattered around the bark

Roots buried deep

Unmoving.

In the greatest of winds

Only few branches remain.

A weekend in Oxford's laboratory with leaves

The University of Oxford owns one of the most researched pieces of woodland in the world, and oddly, in the middle of it, is a Swiss Chalet.

The chalet has just had a major makeover, and been transformed from the witches’ hut of your nightmares into a rather chic abode. Having shown ourselves to be enthusiasts for bringing teenagers into the woods to learn about the research there, we were excited to be asked to test out the chalet as a venue for student sleepovers.

Our lovely friends at Westminster Academy school in Paddington mustered a group of eight very enterprising year 13 IB students who agreed to get on a train to Oxford for a weekend in the unknown. The weather was atrocious so armed with spare wellies and mountains of food we went to meet them at the station, with some trepidation about whether they were going to enjoy their weekend.

We need not have worried. They were the most fantastic group - enthusiastic about exploring Oxford, and open to new adventures. We did a whistlestop tour of some of our favourite bits of Oxford - diving into the famous Norrington Room in Blackwell's bookshop, gawping at the ceiling of Exeter College chapel, being warmly welcomed out of the rain by the Education Manager at the Museum of Natural History, and ending up with tea and biscuits and a fast and fascinating talk at the Environmental Change Institute.

Thence to the woods in the gathering gloom, a communal cook up and an early night. The following day was a gentle, drippy exploration of research projects in the woods, a fungal foray, writing some poetry, and close encounters with Dani, the Bat Lady's, “education” bats. We passed the evening carving pumpkins and baking apple crumbles. One of the students made custard from scratch!

The sun finally shone as we delivered our brave recruits back to the station on Sunday morning, leaving the pumpkins on guard back at the chalet.

We have proved that you can have a huge amount of fun and learn a lot in 36 hours. We are now keen to do it again …..

Kim Polgreen