The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/16/2024 - 02:00
08/16/2024 - 02:00
I smugly assumed I was offering my children a crash course in wholesomeness. The reality was quite different
Earlier this week, I dropped my kids off at a day camp in a park in London and then congratulated myself all the way home. The summer holiday is long and camp programmes are expensive, and when you sign up for one, there is a hard-to-resist expectation that the kids will be not only entertained but improved – physically (swimming lessons), morally (team games – specifically rounders) and, in the case of the camp we signed up for, spiritually. By which, of course, I refer to two sacred words in the middle-class lexicon: forest school.
I should say I’m completely down with the broad mission of forest school. Adults and children are improved by spending time in nature; studies and experience show this. There is a difference, however, between forest school the movement, a laudable push to get kids learning outside based on ideas that stretch back to the 19th century and popularised in the 1950s by, of course, the Scandinavians, and forest school, the modern marketing and business initiative. It reminds me of the catnip status latterly occupied by Mandarin lessons in the New York state primary system, which, when my three-year-olds started pre-school in 2018 – one of them still wearing pull-ups – saw them slogging each week through a mandatory class. There is nothing wrong with learning Mandarin, but it is perhaps not a priority for people who can’t use the toilet yet.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
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08/16/2024 - 01:00
An architectural zigzag design can limit how much heat is absorbed by buildings – and emitted back to space
Incorporating zigzag patterns into building walls could help cool overheated buildings, research has found.
Buildings are now responsible for approximately 40% of global energy consumption, contributing more than a third of global carbon dioxide emissions.
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08/15/2024 - 23:00
Researchers at Australia’s Flinders University hope the acoustic method will make it easier to find and fix soil degradation
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Ever wondered what the Earth sounds like? New research suggests healthy soil has a distinctive soundtrack of its own – the crackles, pops and clicks of ants and worms bustling around underground.
Scientists from Australia’s Flinders University listened to microphones planted in the ground to see if invertebrate instrumentals are a good indicator of biodiversity and soil health.
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08/15/2024 - 20:49
‘MPower’ would be Australia’s largest scheme of its kind – with neighbouring councils invited to join in
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Melbourne residents and business owners could have their electricity bills slashed by hundreds of dollars each year in a radical plan proposed by the city’s lord mayor.
Nick Reece has pledged to facilitate Australia’s largest community-led bulk purchasing scheme for renewable energy if he is re-elected.
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08/09/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 10 August 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00073-7
Ecosystem services “on the move” as a nature-based solution for financing the Global Biodiversity Framework
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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