Re-Thinking Waste in Schools

This project, which includes support from Keep Australia Beautiful, Alice Springs Desert Park, Arid Lands Environment Centre, Gardens for Wildlife, DKACoolMOB and WaterWise Schools will be launched early next term. Look out for an information pack arriving in your school in week 1.

What is the Re-thinking Waste-in Schools Challenge?

The Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB)NT Rethinking Waste – in Schools Challenge invites all NT schools to encompass a broad range of long term sustainableinitiatives for reducing all types of waste. The challenge is based on actions your school takes in the areas of litter reduction, recycling, energy and waste reduction. A list of sustainability action projects and resources that participating schools can select from will be made available on the Keep Australia BeautifulNT website www.kab.org.au/nt

An application form will be available very soon on the KAB website. Please contact KAB ph 89815535 now if you would like a hard copy of the information pack and application form sent to your school.

The Green Directory - Promoting Sustainable Living

The Green Directory is Australia's number one online green business directory. We promote a comprehensive range of Australian and international products and services, which are eco friendly and promote sustainable living.

CLIC Fundraiser

CLIC - Childrens Literature in the Centre

Help raise funds the first Children's literature in the Centre festival in Alice Springs.

The Children's Book Council's CLIC Festival will be held in May2008.

A fundraising Afternoon Tea will be held in the Plaza outside Dymocks Alice Springs on Sunday 7th October 2007 2.00pm - 4.30pm

Dymocks will be donating a percentage of all sales made during this afternoon tea. Wear a spring hat, meet your friends, buy a book, try your luck in the raffle and relax in the Alice Springs Plaza

Learning for Sustainability website

Learning for Sustainability - supporting dialogue, collective action and reflection:

The Learning for Sustainability website focuses on sustainability issues such as natural resource management, and provides an online guide for government agency staff, NGOs and other community leaders working to support multi-stakeholder learning processes.

It may also be of use for professional development purposes by teachers delivering the Sustainable Futures SSABSA courses.

The site provides links to key information sources on topics including networking, dialogue, adaptive management, knowledge management and evaluation. A new section highlights resources on social research methods, systems thinking, and action research.

ENO-Environment Online

Have you been wondering how to use ICT in your teaching and find interactive ways in learning? Are you interested in environmental issues and global education? Would you like to improve your teaching, and network with colleagues from all over the world? This is your chance.

ENO-Environment Online © is a global virtual school for sustainable development and global education. Four environmental themes are studied within a school year on a weekly basis. About 400 schools from 104 countries take part. The ENO programme has been running since 2000. It is coordinated by Pataluoto School and administered by the Department of Education in the city of Joensuu, Finland.

Although the term dates don't line up too well for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere this project provides some great opportunities for education around environment, ICT and twin relationships with students in other parts of the world.

If you use this, we'd love to hear your stories - share them using the comments below.

Carbon Calculator

A new Australian Carbon Calculator is now available online

http://cc.greenhouse.gov.au/neutral/index.html

It is part of the Australian Government's Carbon Clever promotion

http://cc.greenhouse.gov.au/

Human Rights Art Award and Exhibition 2007

Darwin Community Legal Service is once again hosting the Human Rights Art Award and Exhibition to celebrate International Human Rights Day, December 10. The Exhibition gives artists an opportunity to exhibit work, which deals with human rights themes. Artists from across the Territory, from preschool to professional, are invited to enter work in this exciting and challenging exhibition.

The United Nations has declared 2007 to be the International year for the prevention of violence. Artwork can address this theme, OR any other human rights issue of interest to the artist.

Work may be in any medium, and artist may submit individual work, or may like to work collaboratively with other artists or community members. The work can be celebratory and focus on local or international achievements in human rights, or focus on areas of human rights that are in need of urgent attention.

The exhibition will be held in the beautiful Supreme Court Foyer, with the opening, and presentation of prizes (in a number of categories), to be held on Tuesday 11 December 2007. The exhibition will be open until Friday 21 December 2007.

If you wish to participate in this years Award/Exhibition, or would like more information please contact Felicity Wardle, Darwin Community Legal Service, on
8982 1111 or Felicity_Wardle@clc.net.au
________________________________________________________

Violence Prevention

‘Everyone deserves the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.’ For more information go to: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/global_campaign/en/

Walk for Water

Did you know that the second biggest killer of children in the world is unsafe water and poor sanitation?

The Walk for Water will raise money to provide water, sanitation and hygiene education to children across the world. Join Water Aid Australia in the Schools Walk for Water during National Water Week October 21-27 2007.

Just $30 is enough to provide one person in Africa, Asia or the Pacific with a lasting supply of clean water. sanitation and hygiene education and your students can learn about the value of this precious resource at the same time.

Share your ideas for National Water Week by using the comments here

Short film and animation competition

Are your students interested in creating short films and animations? Primary and secondary students (15 years or younger) may use this year's theme Green to enter the internationally known TROP FEST film competition. The festival is a fun, accessible and positive platform for kids to show off their talent in film making. The work of 8 Trop Jr finalists will be shown on the big screens in Sydney's Domain on 17 February 2008. Entries close 10 January 2008. See the website for more information.

Threatened Species Art Show

The Threatened Species Network has been running an art competition across the NT but unfortunately received no school entries from the Alice Springs region by the due date last Friday. They have booked space for an art show at the public library from Friday the 14th of September until the 14th of October. They would love to have some student art to display.

They are seeking:

• Artworks on the theme of threatened species in the Northern Territory;
• Students to attend the opening on Friday the 14th of September at 12:30pm;
• Teachers to indicate their intention to submit artworks by phone or email ASAP (by this Friday 31st August) as they will have to cancel the show if there is no interest.
• Artworks to be ready for hanging by the 13th of September.
  
  Contact Andy Vinter, Threatened Species Network Coordinator - Arid Rangelands on 8952 1541 or avinter@wwf.org.au to find out more and to get some info on local threatened species.

Encyclopedia of Earth

Encyclopedia of Earth is a new electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are aimed at students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as the general public.

Leadership in Environmental Action Program (LEAP)

A new innovative environmental and social justice conference for year 10 and 11 students is being held at the University of Melbourne this year. The conference will be held from Wednesday 26th to Friday 28th September and will give students the opportunity to learn about environmental issues and meet people currently involved in environmental projects. The program will comprise workshops, excursions and discussions around issues such as climate change, deforestation and the extinction of native species.
Facilitators and mentors for the conference include people from the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth and the Australian Student Environment Network.

More information and application details can be downloaded from
www.union.unimelb.edu.au/environment

Applications are due by next Friday ! 31st August.

Maths Olympics at The Lane 23rd August 8pm

I have just received info on the venue for the maths olympics public session detailed in the National Science Week info below.

This will be held at The Lane 8pm for 8.30 start
Entry is a gold coin donation to Riding for the Disabled Inc.

Free email notification of new blog posts

If you would like to receive an email alert when there are new posts on this blog, click on the following link free email notification of blog posts

copy and paste the following

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AZZf

into the Feed URL box and then add the email address that you wish to be alerted at.

You will receive an email asking you to confirm this. You will need to click the link of the confirmation email to complete the set up of this alert.

An interesting clock

My sister just sent me a link to this fabulous world clock .

The host and creator poodwaddle.com claims to have designed it for the 'morbid curiosity' in us all. It is a little morbid, but also a great way to get an idea of the magnitude of many issues in the world including extinctions, deforestation, disease, birth and death rates and much much more. You can look at the figures for the year, month, week, day, or click 'now' to reset and see the what happens during the time you are watching or over the course of a lesson. A great resource to start a unit of work on some of these issues.

A similar 'earth clock' can be found at the bottom of this page and includes some slightly different data.