March 2011 Newsletter
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Dear Charles Darwin,
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Welcome.
Welcome to the March 2011 newsletter from The Charles Darwin Trust packed full of interesting news and resources.
This newsletter will continue to be delivered to your inbox regularly to let you know about forthcoming events and share the Trust's ideas on how Darwin can inspire learning about science and the natural world.
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2011 International Year of Forests
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests. Forests cover 31% of the earth's land and are home to 80% of our land animals and plants, as well as to 300 million humans. Why not make forests the topic of one of your units of work or have a celebration in school on one of the relevant celebration days such as May 22nd, Biodiversity and Forests? This is especially topical and could also lead in to a citizenship focused discussion over the sale of publicly owned forests in the UK.
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Charles Darwin developed his sandwalk copse at Down House with its ‘thinking path’, over 150 years ago. ©The Charles Darwin Trust 2011 |
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Shropshire Darwin Festival
The Shropshire Wildlife Trust hosted the Shropshire Darwin Festival in Shrewsbury during February half-term, and Trust educators delivered some of the workshops on offer. Biodiversity-Our Life Support was a great success, with children amazed to find 31 different species of plant in an area of garden of only three square metres. They learned that each plant had a different life-cycle which influenced the life-cycles of insects, birds and mammals in the food web, just as Darwin explained with his tangled bank. The children exploring Worm Power loved the idea that little worms can bury buildings and they were also interested by the stories of Darwin and his family playing music to worms to test if they can hear. Plants Bite Back featured Darwin's 'beloved Drosera' (Sundew), Sarracenia (Pitcher plants) and Dionaea muscipula (Venus' Fly Trap). Families discovered the magic world of microscopy using a facsimile of Darwin's microscope and found out the reasons why Darwin put his old toenail and his urine on Sundew leaves.
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Plants Bite Back workshop for families at the Darwin Festival in Shrewsbury. A 10-year-old girl studies a Venus' Fly Trap. ©Alistair Newall 2011. |
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The Charles Darwin Trust is on Facebook and Twitter
In the first stage of expanding our online presence and engagement, the Trust has joined the popular social media sites, Facebook and Twitter. In the first instance, we aim to share news related to Darwin, biological education and outdoor learning and to start conversations with you, our users and partners, about the way forward for Darwin-Inspired Learning.
We want you to share with us your understanding and experience of Darwin-Inspired Learning, useful resources that you have found or created and what you want from us. We are planning to develop online resources to support anyone who wants to use the Darwin-Inspired Learning approach and would like input from teachers and educators about what would be useful in terms of the content and structure of those resources.
Find us as Charles Darwin Trust on Facebook and @darwintrust on Twitter. If you are not a member of either of these sites, please feel free to contact us via email or even post to tell us your views on Darwin-Inspired Learning.
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The Charles Darwin Trust on Facebook and Twitter ©The Charles Darwin Trust. |
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We hope you have found this newsletter informative. Please contact us if you have any questions about the work of the Trust.
The Charles Darwin Trust
info@charlesdarwintrust.org
www.charlesdarwintrust.org
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