Join the SEEd Sustainability Journey
I will if you will… is an exercise we use with participants on our SEEd Changemaker programmes and many of our events and workshops. Participants make small or large commitments to help them make changes towards sustainability. The underlying idea is that we are all connected and responsible for each other, therefore changing the world and making it more sustainable requires us to work together. Now, the SEEd team has integrated the exercise into our newsletter and we invite you, as a member of our community, to join us on this journey of Commitment, Joy & Impact.
We are here to help each other, so we designed a journey that is easy to follow, where you have the possibility of choice, can feel and exercise what change is like, and most importantly, feel happy instead of anxious about your actions. Believe me, making a change can be fun!
All we ask of you during this upcoming month is to choose one COMMITMENT from the list below that you are eager to try out; one JOY that helps you relax and keep your journey fun; and one IMPACT idea that you find interesting enough to then spread the word to friends, colleagues, family members, or anyone you encounter. Easy, isn’t it? But more importantly, by following the steps you can change your lifestyle, your mindset, and empower others to follow suit. Like a real change maker.
Please do share your actions and commitments with us by email or on social media.
Commitment
Choose a commitment from the list below and see which one the SEEd team has picked!
- Common Grounds Day of Action – Meet your MP on the 12th of October! What could be more critical for us to put on the Commitment list, especially for the month PACTS (Politicians Accountable for Climate To Students) launches, than an initiative that calls for civic engagement and participation? The Climate Coalition provides various resources to help you prepare for the day. How can your community, big or small, invite your MP? How do we ask relevant and proactive questions to encourage a fair and ambitious climate plan? And what else should you do to make the most of the day? Take the pledge and join the most determined groups of people to make change happen!
- Follow The PaddlePod – George, our new Administrator, has created an exciting new podcast with his fellow freelance science communicator and co-host, Casey. George and Casey decided to shift the conventional podcasting environment to a natural location, paddling down the River Avon. The PaddlePod aims to introduce scientific topics focused on aquatic and marine biology while being outdoors and exploring the issues with their own eyes and hands. In their first episode, George and Casey introduce their podcast idea and their biology background. The second episode comes with their first speakers, campaigning conservationist Emma Nicol and Head of Programmes and Funding Jon Shepherd from Frank Water, with whom they discuss the health of rivers around the UK, and solutions and actions being done to conserve our freshwater. Isn’t this sustainability and reconnecting with nature in action? At SEEd, we truly believe in celebrating creative ideas, effort and passion. So here we go, sharing a real success with you all.
- Young Country Diary – The Guardian now offers an outstanding opportunity for children aged 8-14 to get their articles published. Do you need to be an expert in biology for that? No. Therefore, it is time to get out in nature and share your experiences! Which one? Really, anything. The easy three-step process consists of going out one day in the local area or anywhere in nature. Then, write an article about something you saw or are passionate about that relates to the experiences you gained on your day out. Lastly, send The Guardian the article through the link you can find here, with some pictures if you have any. Be aware that the article must be submitted by the legal guardian. You can find further hints and tips, but do not forget: your writing can show your passion!
- Challenging our assumptions about insects – Insects are tiny creatures with tiny brains who live short and not-too-sophisticated lives, who do not feel pain and who do not care for their offspring. Or are they? Insect neurobiologist Meghan Barrett gives insects the benefit of the doubt by explaining the diversity of their species, features and behaviour. So, are some insects good parents? She explains that some insects actually live quite a while and that the size of the brain does not necessarily match the level of sophistication in their behaviour – some insects are capable of cognitive bias, facial recognition, rescue behaviour, wound treatment and social learning. Researchers just grazed the surface of the insect world, but found anxiety-like and depression-like states, among others. Suppose there is such a long list of complex behaviours in insects. Why do we humans, who sometimes consider themselves above nature but at least highly sophisticated, believe insects are simple, senseless, culture-less creatures? Is it because we see the world only through our mammal eyes? Do insects feel at least some pain but are “locked in a single expression” of their exoskeleton? Are the behaviour of insects weird and stupid, or is it just us who do not understand?
- E-Waste Day: Join the Great Cable Challenge – Material Focus invites you to join their network of schools for the Great Cable Challenge as International E-Waste Day is coming up on the 14th of October. The campaign aims to encourage the recycling of your electrics at home and school. They provide teachers with a briefing document explaining general information on electrical recycling and how you can get involved. Further, you can find a PowerPoint presentation, a student activity, myth-busting videos and a pack of ready-to-use resources. In other words, everything you need to have to learn about and try something as your commitment you might not have tried before.
Photo from: pinterest.com
Joy
This element helps you stick to your commitment with its small rewards. And secondly, it helps you exercise a sustainability mindset through art. Believe it or not, you will start to gradually see the world through the lens of sustainability, experience it differently, and reinvent the self and its habits accordingly.
- Start forest bathing – One of the weirdest things I came across while putting together this newsletter was “online” forest bathing. For those who are not familiar with just “general” forest bathing, it is the Japanese version of Western “ME time” – a relaxation practice outdoors, preferably in the woods. Though it is slightly more advanced than that. The three components of forest bathing comprise: 1) Yugen – being aware of the beauty of your environment; 2) Komorebi – the play of the sunlight through the leaves; 3) Wabi-sabi – the beauty of imperfection and impermanence. Forest bathing is a mindfulness exercise that involves experiencing your surroundings more deeply than in everyday life by paying attention to details and becoming aware of the senses. However, instead of sitting on the floor of our living room, to do forest bathing one has to go outdoors. There can be several benefits for that, some of them more strongly supported by research than others, like being in nature seems to improve anxiety, depression and stress. And just by common sense, on the floor of our living room, most likely, we will have a pretty stable temperature, lightning, smells, and the sounds we hear might be the neighbours watching TV or the gurgling of the drain in our kitchen – very relaxing! Therefore, practicing forest bathing – exercising awareness of the senses, going to the woods, and listening to the co-existence of living and non-living particles of our biosphere might also help you reconnect to nature and understand the world slightly differently.
- How art can transform your relationship with nature – An episode of the Black Earth podcast with guest Bryony Ella, an interdisciplinary artist-researcher, creating artworks and projects that focus on reimagining our relationship with the natural world. Bryony talks about her journey of discovering the concept of embodied ecology; in other words, she is dismantling the dichotomies of what it means to be human. Does that mean valuing bodily or experiential knowledge to a greater extent? What could the relationship between the body, the senses and sustainability be? Her latest project, “Melting Metropolis”, aims to discover everyday experiences of extreme heat and health in urban heat islands, pinpointing the systems that perpetuate what is behind the island effect, thereby giving attention to the exposure of some marginalised communities and land with those whose experiences differ from them. As the Melting Metropolis shows, the scope or, let us say it this way, the imagination of art seems hardly limited, so the following question coming from an artist like Bryony seems highly relevant to anyone thinking about sustainability in any sense: “Who/What is preventing radical reimagining of how we relate to the natural world?”
- Benefits of Nature Sounds – When I searched for “sounds of nature” on Spotify or YouTube, these playlists and recordings seemed just as artificial as the sounds one wants to avoid in a busy city. Further, above we had forest bathing and all the benefits of going out in the wild. However, there are times when you cannot leave your work or studies and still want to relax a bit. My subjective opinion is that instead of online forest bathing, I would listen to nature sounds. You can find a list of our health and mind advantages, from sharpening focus to better sleep quality. After listening to many recordings, I would recommend this app, where you can also access some free sounds. This app was created by Lang Elliott, a professional nature recordist, to capture the best recordings of his 25 years in the profession of remote wild areas throughout North America. Please enjoy!
- The Fifth Seal – How can we be human or be humane, how can we live a good life, and what does good mean anyway? A word that is often present in discourses around sustainability is hegemony. So, we might want to think through what hegemony means regarding solutions for change. For example, when our vision about sustainability is to be inclusive and share ideas and thoughts as they were in the possession of the community, what happens when an idea gets “stolen” – is used for less beneficial reasons, like to accumulate more money in a single hand? In other words, the idea that seemed helpful for the collective from a sustainability mindset obstructs transformation and upholds the current hegemony. Why? Because it “got in the hand of the bad guys”/ the ones whose mindset is driven by the current hegemony. So what happens then? Are we the good guys when we let that happen, to let them be because a more holistic view drives our actions? And what if letting that happen helps suppress and marginalise sustainable visions of being? Do we need to be a form of bad guys to make change happen?
The Fifth Seal is a cultic philosophical drama picturing five friends in Hungary during the Second World War. They live under the ruling Hungarian nazi Arrow Cross Party waiting for the war to end and the Russians to liberate/occupy the country. So what political values should they choose, and can they survive and stay humane? Some might say those were different times, but can we implement the questions and philosophical thinking in our situation, in our time?
Wood Church by Byrony Ella from: https://www.studiobryonyella.com/paintings
Impact
Sometimes, solutions and great ideas are not waiting to be invented but are already out there. Somewhere. Which of these impactful solutions will you choose to spread the word about to your students, colleagues, friends and family?
- The Oasis hubs – Providing a surer start for youngsters – You are probably wondering what this new government might be doing regarding keeping young people in schools and improving their opportunities for a better start in life. Everyone’s life. Including the life of those young people who grow up in a violent area, whose parents live in temporary accommodations and who can feel alienated and invaluable in a materialist world. According to SchoolsWeek, the new government might follow the example of Oasis, which focuses not only on teenagers but also on their whole community, providing them with a neutral space to gather and build relationships with people with similar experiences while still celebrating diversity. The Lambeth hub has been running for almost two decades, and Oasis is piloting two new youth hubs in London this year. At the hub, social workers offer a variety of help for both young people and their broader community. Free meals, play sessions, community festivals, debt and immigration advice, adult learning programmes and support for victims of gang violence are all on their agenda. Meanwhile, the hub community cares for the animals on their little city farm, which gives them a sense of being needed and helps them connect with the natural environment. Since young people are highly influenced by their home environment, where they spend most of their time, the approach of Oasis could be an example of nationwide action.
- Responsibility for climate harms – International Court of Justice will decide who is responsible for climate harms, or since its decision is non-binding they will express a highly influential opinion especially for democracies. Worldwide, there were 2,666 climate lawsuits last year, meaning that researchers, young people, activists, and NGOs concerned about the climate’s state consider the legal route of taking action a severe opportunity. Some argue that the recent turn of the International Court of Justice can be considered as judicial overreach by describing what actions a government should take. However, Nature writes, “This could be one of the most consequential developments in climate policy since the Paris Agreement itself”.
- Current state of the Voluntary Carbon Market explained – The Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) is a decentralised market where companies or individuals can buy credits from those who reduce, reuse or avoid emissions to offset their emissions. Data shows that the market is constantly developing; new institutions and organisations are founded, and their rules and recommendations are changing. In the latest Climate Now interview, Dr Jennnifer Jenkins, scientist and Chief Science Officer at Rubicon Carbon, explains some of the advantages and hardships of the market. She talks about specific sectors being the biggest buyers and those needing to access the VCM. She introduces arguments around the credits for flexibility in reaching NetZero and decisions that might harm that. The process of participation in VCM and much more is explained. So, since capitalism is often attacked, let’s find out how and whether voluntary private action can influence the green transition.
- Review and recommendations on sustainability competencies – Sustainability competencies are crucial elements of sustainable education; therefore, tracking trends and implementing them as objectives for teaching helps reflect on the field. World’s Largest Lesson aimed to find and update answers to questions like, “What skills and capacities do young people need to address sustainability issues?”, “Are educational and learning programmes supporting young people to develop sustainability skills?” and “How might we, and others, expedite or increase access to sustainability skills development?”. One of the most promising findings of the report is the increase in the direct delivery of sustainability programmes in formal education settings. You can find some recommendations for sustainable education, for example, being more intentional when developing sustainability competencies, the advantages of being more advantageous with young people, or the benefits of the non-formal learning style in the formal space. If you want a solid grounding in sustainable education, read the report as it clears some definitions and words often used in the field.
