4 degrees of Warming - Google Earth Climate Change Map

I was downloading forms so that I could apply for Skye's passport when I came across this google earth interactive map showing the possible effects around the world of 4 degrees of warming. There are facts and videos about the different effects, ranging from the hottest temperatures in Europe increasing by 8 degrees celcius, to increased risk of forest fire in southern Australia to 150m people a year more being flooded by 2075 due to sea level rise.

A great resource for Geographers to get students to do their own research into the effects of climate change. It could also be used in our module Global Warming, Global Warning. In particular in the 'What are the Consequences?' lesson.

Down load the KML file from the fco website using the link above. Enjoy the weekend, Lucy

New lessons on BFA organic gardening program

The Biological Farmers of Australia organic food gardening program has been updated with 5 new lessons. These include why plants need water and how to conserve it, 13 recipes using garden produce and soil pH and its importance. This set of lessons is aimed at students aged 8-12, so primary through to year 8 of high school although much of the material could be adapted for older students.

If your school has a HotRock garden have a look at these resources.

Organic Food gardening Lessons

Lucy

The footprint of the 'Nano Puff"

No they haven't discovered the footprints of a very small dragon in the snowypeaks of Tibet but in our office in blustery southwest Australia a new creature has appeared, the nano puff wearing ecoworker. And they look pretty cool really, and cosy. Samudra the organic raw food cafe and yoga centre behind which we work has started stocking Patagonia products in its shop.

Great move I think. It fits in really well with their image. Patagonia is a brand delivering high quality goods for outdoor sports, including surfing and yoga, whose philosophy started out to protect wilderness areas in Patagonia and has developed into one multi million dollar business that is trying hard to act sustainably and develop products that will have a minimal impact on the environment, be manufactured in fair labour conditions and fulfil their high spec for quality and product innovation. And they tell you all about it too. Here's the footprint chronicle for the nano puff. It shows the journey, the different environmental impacts, discusses the good and the bad and goes into detail about each stage of the manufacturing process.

You can choose different products too and dig deeper and even join an online discussion about it. I think this website could be put to excellent use with our The Big CONsumption module, showing how a product impacts along its supply chain and as a case study of a company implementing sustainable practices. You could use the shirt case study to compare it to the standard t shirt manufacture in 'What's the Cost?'. Its great for geography as a study of interconnectedness. In Business studies you could use it as an example of how a company has incorporated ecoprincples into its brand and how this allows it to charge high prices ( its otherwise known as 'Patagucci' due to its relatively high prices) by increasing its cachet and so allows it to invest in improving its supply chain and manufacturing even further.

Follow the "Footprint Chronicles" to find out about the life cyle of lots of Patagonia products. Did you know they also offer to recyle all your old patagonia products for you too?

Sustainability starters - great vids

Here are some great sustainability starter videos produced by ANZ and IBM. They cover smarter water, energy, transport and cities. They're Australian too!









I came across them on Richard Allaway's site www.geogalot.com. He has a fantastic resources site for geography teachers www.geographyalltheway.com. He teaches IB but the resources cover most geography topics. Its now a subscription site but well worth it.

Enjoy the vidoes and have a good weekend. Lucy

Science sustainability resources from UPD8

UPD8 is a great website. Its got loads of curriculum and resources for science, and the lessons are really inoovative covering the usual topics in absorbing ways. I just looked at one where pupils were given the task of coordinating a car chase stunt for a hollywood movie, enabling them to learn about the relationship between speed, distance and time and inter and extraploation of graphs. On a specifically sustainability slant.....

They also have a series of lessons called climate futures. These cover energy use - which is the best present to give mum for her birthday?, eco-friendly motorbikes - write a review for a magazine, food recycling etc. You have to register to download the resources but these ones and lots of others on the site are free.

Lucy

Branding BP - by Greenpeace

Well the BP oil leak must be the biggest environmental disaster of recent times. BP have come out of it looking pretty bad too, even though they've got lots of money to spend on advertising and PR with the media as it is now, the internet and social networking sites its very hard for them to project a positive image or convince the public they are a 'green' company when its so easy to find evidence to the contrary.

BP rebrabded a few years ago from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum and changed their shield logo to a logo, a softer look meant to show that they were focussing not just on oil but on other alternative forms of energy. Well Greenpeace are now having a go at rebranding them again. The competition was open to the public and you can have a look and vote for your favourite here http://rebrandbp.greenpeace.org.uk/

Uee these in your business lessons to consider marketing and branding. What messages are the Greenpeace rebrands getting across? How do they do it? How must companies change in their methods of PR? Do you think the internet and social media mean that companies will really have to act as they claim/ change their ways of operating?

You could do similar in English and Art. Get studetns to design their own logo. Think of other companies whose businesses are not sustainable and think how you would rebrand them to demonstrate this to other people so that people brough other more sustainable or ecologically friendly products.

Lucy

Climate Change and Art

This is a picture of a 'Climate Refugee Camp' an art installation by hermann josef hack.

This is another idea which could be used in Society and Environment to start thinking about the effects of climate change and in Art as inspiration for students to create their own works to raise awareness of and encourage people to act to prevent climate change .

• Why might we get climate refugees?

• What does Being a refugee mean?
• Why has he done this in a main square of Berlin?
• What message is he trying to get across?

Lucy

Great Starter Pictures - Chris Jordan Consumption

My post yesterday was all about consumption and then I came across this artist Chris Jordan. The statistics of consumption can sometimes seem a bit arbitrary but his photos really help get across the scale of our waste and the rate a t which we are using resources. They are in a series called 'Running the numbers', click on the link to see all the images and the stastics behind tham. e.g. 'Paper Cups' an image of 410,000 paper cups the number of disposable hot drink cups used in the US every 15 (!yes 15) minutes, 'Plastic bags' 60,000 plastic bags the number used int he US every 5 seconds or 'Toothpicks' which depicts 100 million toothpicks, the number of trees cut down every year in the US to provide the paper for junk mail.

Thought provoking stuff. I think these would make great images for a starter. Get students to guess what they are showing (on his website you can then zoom the image to get a close up) and the numbers involved. It makes the unimaginable scale of our consumption and waste somehow imaginable (and quite horrifying).

Consumption Modules

We've got a consumption module on our website. Its in the SOSE section and is a 20 hour module for year 10 and 11. It uses Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff and explores consumption, wants vs needs, recycling, fair trade, happiness, production and consumption chains and interconnectedness. Its here. The Big CONsumption.

I also just noticed that Facing the future that I pointed you to yesterday have also done a module on this subject. Its free to download from their website. Its called Buy, Use, Toss. I haven't yet looked in detail but it also uses the story of stuff and there are likely to be lots of complimentary ideas.

Edit - Had a look, it follows a very similar structure to our module as its also based on the story of stuff, additionally there is a lesson on advertising which could be used in an English lesson aswell.

Lucy

Excited to be starting again

I'm back at work after giving birth to Skye 6 weeks ago. She's happily at home with her Dad and I'm really excited to be back in work. I thought I'd start this blog to let you know what's going on at Hotrock, to share the great resources we develop and find and to let you know of other inspirational stuff that I come across. I hope that you guys will share your ideas aswell and that it will become a useful site for teachers and educators who want to get sustainability into their curriculum and get new ways of teaching into (or indeed out of) their classrooms.

So just to start us off here are a couple of great websites. First off it has to be our one.....

www.thehotrock.org.au

Here you'll find out what we're up to in WA. News of the schools we work with, what's grwoing in their gardens and what they're doing in their classrooms. Most importantly, certainly from my perspective as curriculum developer, you'll find all the great resources we've developed for you to use. These are TOTALLY FREE and READY TO GO. They will help you get sustainablility into your curriculum, using ideas and materials which will get your class excited and motivated, whilst covering the topics that you need to cover. There are lots of modules and individual lessons in lots of different subject areas and all the materials you need are there to use. Lesson plans, powerpoints, worksheets, videos etc..........................

We're adding stuff all the time so sign up to our newsletter or follow this blog to find out when it comes out.

Recruiting - If you think that you could help us to develop more resources in your area then give us a shout. We are always looking to recruit new resource developers and we can pay you too! As ever I know its the difficulty of finding the time but its flexible work so if you can squeeze some extra work hours into your day let us know.

http://www.facingthefuture.org/

These guys are an american organisation who produce resources about sustainability and global issues. They are very original and use excellent teaching methods. There are quite a few that are free to download, e.g. a module on climate change, others are available to buy.

They also send out a newsletter and I found this link on there:

http://www.journalofsustainabilityeducation.org/wordpress/

I'm really looking forward to reading alot of these articles. I hope that it will help me when thinking about ways to develop our curriculum.

I'm looking forward to catching up with Richard, Ingrid and Shae to find out what's been going on in schools whilst I've been away (2 months is long time really, although it flew by.)

Thought for the day ..... Its noticing the little things that get us inspired about living sustainably. After a big storm last night there were lots of little wren like birds in our garden which I haven't seen there before.... beautiful..... I will have to find out what they are, I'm still learning about WA wildlife.

I'll post again soon....... Enjoy the hols if you're on them. Lucy