Schools : Earth Day 2014 : resources & activities

Google Doodle Earth Day 2014
doodler: Kevin Laughlin

https://www.google.com/doodles/

Today, April 22 is Earth Day 2014 . As I've done in the past, I share some thoughts to teach Earth Day and environmental science in general. 

Last years I shared different Earth Day-related resources. That list presents different resources :   middle schools and high-junior schools. 

Google Doodle:

Google Doodle Earth Day 2014
doodler: Kevin Laughlin

https://www.google.com/doodles/

But let's begin showing joy by the  lovely Google Doodle Earth Day 2014. Awesome!

"The notion that the 'animals' we share our planet with can cause such positive repercussions within their habitat moved me to focus on the many and varied beings that the Earth has given rise to."

Kevin Laughlin

This year's Earth Day is the 44th, since its inception in 1970, which was widely viewed as marking the beginning of the contemporary environmental movement. 

It is organised by the Earth Day Network, which aims to "inform and energize populations so they will act to secure a healthy future for themselves and their children".

Green Cities

http://www.earthday.org/greencities/

Education:

"Education is at the heart of Earth Day. Learn more about how your school can get involved. And be sure to register your class’s Earth Day events"

Earth Day Networking

Green Cities

http://www.earthday.org/

Theme 2014:

The theme of Earth Day 2014 is Green Cities. So what exactly are we supposed to do to make our cities green? 

We can start with transportation. That means transforming our public transportation systems so that they’re accessible, convenient, and run on clean fuels. It also means making our cities more walkable and bikeable—with protected bike lanes, plenty of public green space, and pedestrian-friendly sidewalks. 

Finally, it means switching over to electric, hybrid, and other eco-friendly vehicles and relying on ride-sharing, rather than driving alone.

This year the Earth Day Network is looking for people to share stories of climate change by uploading pictures that represent "the faces of climate change."

Cities throughout Europe are gearing up for "Earth Day". With several events going on across the continent, Europeans cities and European schools are celebrate and promote a more sustainable and healthy planet this Earth Day.

http://ec.europa.eu/

UN scientific panel #IPCC says our globe is warming and encourages the world to prepare for risks from a changing climate.

Green Cities/ EC

https://ec.europa.eu/environment/

The United Nations scientific panel on climate change presented its latest report on the impacts of climate change, society's vulnerability to them, and the capacity and limits to adapt to the changing climate. 

Activities:

In the most European countries and almost everywhere in the world, today is the first day of back to school, after Easter holidays. Of course, Earth Day is not only celebrated on April 22. It must be celebrated every day.

• You can start by introduce Earth Day Google Doodle to your students into your school curriculum and explain it.

Google Doodle:

Earth Day 2014 is marked with a collection of five animated doodles by Google, showing the Rufous hummingbird, the veiled chameleon, the moon jellyfish, the dung beetle, a puffer fish and a pair of Japanese macaques.

Google Doodle and its creator Kevin Laughlin have done well to choose an intriguing selection of critters to illustrate the movement, although not many people would put the dung beetle on their list of favorite animals. The Japanese macaques are a far more traditional selection, shivering stoically in their hot springs as the snow falls.

• If you could do one thing to help the climate what would it be?  A good question to your students. Pay attention to the answers and ask the students to develop their ideas in different projects.

• This year the Earth Day Network is looking for people to share stories of climate change by uploading pictures that represent "the faces of climate change."

Another interesting activity to propose your students, don't you think?

#Global Selfie Earth Day 2014

https://www.nasa.gov/globalselfie/

• NASA invites you and your students to take part in a worldwide celebration of Earth Day this year with the agency's #GlobalSelfie event. 

How do students take part?

• NASA will be monitoring photos posted to five social media sites: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr.

• Post your students photos to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, or post it to the #GlobalSelfie event page on Facebook or the #GlobalSelfie group on Flickr. You can also join the #GlobalSelfie Google+ event page.

This activity your students will love it !

Level : Higher Education ; Vocational Education (up-to 18 years-old)

http://images.latintimes.com/

Resources:

• The Earth Day Network is the best website to start your search for Earth Day information. The Earth Day Network offers a K-12 Toolkit How your school can get involved in Earth Day or  nine lesson plans (2013) about preserving the environment. 

• National Geographic has some other great resources for learning about environmental science and Earth  Day. 

• Ways students can  fight climate change:

By taking small steps, you can contribute to the global climate change effort - and save money on your energy and heating bills! Learn how easy it is with these simple tips. Read more here

• EcoKids is a Canadian organization that provides free resources for teaching and learning about topics in environmental science.The games and activities section for kids offers dozens of online games across eight categories. Within each of the eight categories the games and activities are again categorized according to age appropriateness. 

The eight games and activities categories are: wildlife, climate change, energy, water, waste, land use, the North, and First Nations & Inuit.

If you need other resources for elementary and secondary schools, take a look at the thematic Earth Day posts on this blog. Here are the posts of the last three years:

• A Story about the Forest (2011)

• A Special Earth Day (2012)

• Wall-E, a green resource to Earth Day (2012)

• Let's talk about Earth Day (2013)

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." 

Native American Proverb

G-Souto

22.04.2014

Copyright © 2014G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Education : Earth Day 2014, resources & activities by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Let's talk about Earth Day 2013

http://www.earthday.org/

Big day approaches! April 22nd ! Earth Day 2013! After Earth Hour 2013, this is the most important day of the Planet!

And Earth Day is a special day for schools! All over the world, teachers and students work on fantastic projects to commit to actions that go beyond the planet. More than 100 million schoolchildren around the world will learn about the importance of clean air and water and about climate change;

Earth Day 2013 theme is "The Face of Climate Change" to highlight growing impact on individuals through interactive digital campaign.

“Many people think climate change is a remote problem, but the fact is that it’s already impacting real people, animals, and beloved places all over the world, and these Faces of Climate Change are multiplying every day,“ said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network. “Fortunately, other Faces of Climate Change are also multiplying every day: those stepping up to do something about it. For Earth Day 2013, we’ll bring our generation’s biggest environmental challenge down to size – the size of an individual faced with the consequences.”

http://www.earthday.org/

Thousands of people but most of all schools around the globe are sharing their activities and stories - stories of the impact that climate change has had on their lives, and the extraordinary efforts that they are making to fight it. Each one represents a different Face of Climate Change.

Education:


After Earth Day 2011 and "A Story about the Forest" by the Canadian author Franke James, or Earth Day 2012 and Wall-E by Pixar, let's continue inspiring our students, this time for Earth Day 2013 by elevating the importance of environmental issues at school curricula. 

School time is a wonderful place to teach and share those values. 

"If you have any sense of wonder or faith in humanity, you would have to agree that Earth Day is an extraordinary event. It combines the functions of educator, movement builder and the largest public service project in the world. More than one billion people from almost every single country on earth will take an action in service to our planet."

One more thing! This year Universities Participate in Climate Changes Efforts. 

Campuses around the world have been stepping up to participate in The Face of Climate Change. 

Earth Day Network is receiving some great student #faceofclimate photos from places as far-flung as Taiwan, Iran, Costa Rica, and the USA. 

The Face of Climate Change Photo Mosaic is a fantastic wall with  people sharing their stories on the impact of climate change.

Check out these awesome photos, and send yours! Earth Day Network wants at least 200 campuses represented on The Face of Climate Change wall by Earth Day.

Let's continue inspiring our students, this time for Earth Day 2013 by elevating the importance of environmental issues around the world. 

School time is a wonderful place to teach and learn about and green values.

Well, this year I have a real story: The Team Aurora! A group of four young people was going to the North Pole to declare it protected on behalf of all life on Earth. 

They began their journey on April 5. Backed by millions they will plant a flag for the future on the seabed and call for a sanctuary in the uninhabited area around the pole. 

Team Aurora

http://www.greenpeace.org/

And they did it! On April 14 Ezra (USA, Renny (Seychelles), Josefina (Sweden) and Kiera-Dawn (Tso’Tine-Gwich’in youth from Denendeh in the Northwest Territories, Canada) have planted a flag. 

The flag is attached to a glass and titanium time capsule containing the names of 2.7 million people who joined the campaign to Save the Arcti. 

The four young ambassadors went to the Pole to say "this special area of the Arctic belongs to no person and no nation, that it is the common heritage of everyone on Earth."

Yes! It is indeed! The Arctic is a common heritage pf everyone on Earth.

http://www.greenpeace.org/

Before lowering the pod, the four ambassadors held a ceremony at the top of the world, offering their wishes for the future, their dreams for a different tomorrow.

• Share and discuss those dreams (image above) with your students;

• Ask them for their dreams about the planet Earth;

• Writing: news, storytelling, reports, poems, slogans;

• Green tweets at school's account: #EarthDay #FaceOfClimate

Ideas or some Activities for students? 

Ecological Footprint Quiz

http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator

Become a Climate Report

http://www.earthday.org/takeaction/index.html

North Pole Expedition (interactive)

http://www.intothearctic.gp/#/map

Green Blog ( my students)

http://aprendizagensnanet.blogspot.pt/#!/2012/04/telhados-verdes-dia-da-terra-2012.html

You may read (French language) my pedagogical experience in 2008 with students published on a French academic website for teachers :

Journée de la Terre

http://www.edufle.net/+Journee-de-la-Terre+.html

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

Native American Proverb

G-Souto

19.04.2013

Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Let's talk about Earth Day 2013 by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Human Rights Day & New Generations

Human Rights

http://tjsullivan.com/

"Giving voice to the voiceless means providing them with formal and genuine means of making themselves heard (...) this is what UNESCO works to achieve."

Irina Bokova,

UNESCO Director-General

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on 10 December 1948. It expresses the values and fundamental freedoms that lie at the heart of a united humanity. 

"The Declaration is one of the most humanistic and inspiring texts ever written – it is also a call to action, for people and governments to join forces to raise awareness about and enforce human rights and to ensure that they are exercised in full."

At a time of uncertainty and change, we are duty-bound to observe the principles of human dignity and fundamental freedoms – there can be no justification for breaching them.

The Human Rights Day gives us an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to these values and our resolve to put them into practice across the world for all to enjoy.

http://efareport.files.wordpress.com/

Education:

Education should encompass values such as peace, non-discrimination, equality, justice, non-violence, tolerance and respect for human dignity. 

Quality education based on a human rights approach means that rights are implemented throughout the whole education system and in all learning environments.

All schools and other educational institutions make a special effort to inform children of their rights according to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

Teachers have a crucial role on the alert of poverty or child labour cases among their students.

In our days, teachers help students draw attention to situations like students living below poverty line in their own schools, or countries.

As educators, we can hold events at the school as at St Kentigern's school, to  draw the attention of the media in our city and start nationwide campaigns fighting the injustice of poverty among our students. 

We live in developed countries. And our children live hard times. Incredible. How can students be successful in school curricula if some of them come to school without taking a good meal? Unbelievole? No, this is the truth.

Let us draw inspiration from some good actions to strengthen respect for human rights of children and young people.

http://www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/

This holds the key to more inclusive and stronger societies, to live in peace and to strengh our work to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Children should be able to learn about children rights and access information on their rights. 

The Council of Europe has therefore produced child-friendly material which is available in different languages. It's free online on the website of the Council of Europe Programme Building a Europe for and with children.


Teachers are encouraged to use and disseminate this material. 

www.google.com/

"This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century - solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others."

Elie Wiesel

Credits : Unicef

http://wa2.www.unesco.org/

Activities :

• Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UDHR has been translated into at least 398 languages and dialects;

• Organize lecture series, film series, book discussions, workshops, seminars, debates among students, parents, on human rights;

• Go out school with your students to help other young people and old people within  your community;

• Ask your students (Secondary education) to write out a specific article from the United Nations Declaration;

• 
  

Finally, the social transformation that is needed to achieve a peaceful society can only be achieved through the active contribution of everyone, regardless of where we live, or our social and cultural background.

The new reality needs new children rights in developed countries! So, let's develop our best effort to humanize the school by helping our students to live better in our cities.

G-Souto

10.12.2012
copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com


Human Rights Day & New Geneations by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References:

Credits: video UNESCO

Building a Europe for and with children
http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/children/

Human Rights Day | UNESCO
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/human-rights-day/