April 22 is Earth Day and its organisers are encouraging us all to “invest in our planet”, the theme of this year’s event. It certainly needs us all to pay more attention to its needs. Earthday.org and NASA provide lots information and teaching tools to engage students and offer practical actions to take. This 1-minute … Continue reading “Earth Day 2022”
This giant sculpture has been installed as a message to the G7 leaders meeting for a summit in Cornwall, England. It’s made entirely of electronic waste and is designed to draw attention to the environmental problems caused by the 53 million tonnes of phones, tablets, computers and other electronic devices discarded every year. The sculpture, … Continue reading “Mount Recyclemore”
This Earth Day, 22 April, President Biden is hosting an online Leaders’ Summit on Climate ahead of the UN’s COP 26 Climate Change Conference that is supposed to take place in Glasgow in November. And he made the surprise pledge to cut the U.S.’s carbon emissions by half in the next decade, double the previous … Continue reading “A Free Poster for Earth Day”
A middle-school student from Florida used a science-fair project to convince the Miami-Dade School District to begin converting its fleet of school buses over to electric. Eighth-grader Holly Thorpe measured CO2 levels inside the diesel school buses and her alarming results convinced the district to make the switch. The yellow school bus is a classic … Continue reading “Teen Convinces Florida District to Switch to Electric School Buses”
Gitanjali Rao from Colorado, won America’s Top Young Scientist 2017, for her innovative gadget to test for contaminants like lead in drinking water. She’s continuing her research to try to bring her test to market, while also working on cyberbullying and opoid addiction. She has also mentored 30,000 students, encouraging them to use science and … Continue reading “Young Scientist Named Time’s “Kid of the Year””
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day marches to support the environmental movement. Like so many events in 2020, the marches and events planned to mark the anniversary on 22 April will have to become virtual. But these videos of 50 Voices for Earth Day, from age 8 to 80, from around … Continue reading “50 Years of Earth Day”
The theme of World Oceans Day, 8 June, is the problems caused in the oceans by plastic pollution, a subject which is very much in the news at the moment. There are some great videos and teaching resources on this topic. And more to do in Plastic-Free July. This wordless video, “How will you celebrate … Continue reading “Fight Plastic Pollution”
This A1+ document is about teenage Australian adventurer Jade Hameister, whose dream came true in January 2018 when she completed the third challenge in the polar hat-trick, becoming the youngest person to ski to both Poles and Greenland. Interestingly, although we can expect her to be considered a superhero by A1+ students, she insists on … Continue reading “Polar Adventurer”