Earthwatch are offering the chance for science and geography educators to get out into the field and work alongside scientists to create educational resources.
From the Earthwatch website…
This year we are pleased to be able to offer 24 fully-funded educator places on a variety of different Earthwatch projects. Working alongside leading scientists for a period of between one to two weeks, small groups of five to eight educators will take part in hands-on scientific research on facilitated projects which include Dolphins of Greece and Whales and Dolphins of the Hebrides.
See their educators section for more information. The closing date is 4 May.
The main site for 2041 went live on Friday. For those of you who don’t know 2041, it’s an organisation set up by Robert Swan - the first person to walk to both poles - to preserve Antarctica.
The 2041 team have some amazing projects lined up this year, all coming soon. First off, the E-Base on King George Island off the Antarctic peninsula goes live at the beginning of March, broadcasting live on renewable energy. If they can live off solar and wind, etc. in Antarctica, it’s a message to us all to give it a go at home.
Then in mid-March the E-Base Goes Live team will be joined by a team from global corporations learning about leadership and sustainability on the Inspire Antarctic Expedition.
And if that’s not enough, the 2041 yacht on the Voyage for Cleaner Energy, will be engaging audiences along the West Coast of the US from the beginning of April.
Finally, a big big thank you to the teams at Digital Explorer and 2041 for working so hard to make this happen.
In March 2008, Robert Swan and the Inspire Antarctic team will be broadcasting live from the newly launched E-Base in Bellingshausen on King George Island. Robert will be living solely off renewable energy for 2 weeks and sharing his daily experiences with the world through a cutting-edge, interactive website (to be launched mid-February 2008).
Through daily video broadcasts, photography and live chats, Robert and the 2041 team aim to bring the message of preserving Antarctica, promoting sustainable lifestyles and combating climate change to a wider audience.
Follow the adventure online, beginning March 1, 2008, and be sure to check out the BRAND NEW WEBSITE, going live mid-February 2008!!
“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” A great quote from Nietzsche in Jay Griffiths’ ‘Wild‘ that is part of a growing wilderness flavour at Digital Explorer. Bringing the joy of wilderness to a greater number of young people is as important now as it has ever been.
Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop was recently interviewed as part of the Wilderness Foundation’s Campfire questions, and Digital Explorer looks forward to future collaboration with the organisation.
The Wilderness Foundation was set up to protect wilderness areas wherever they are by:
Educating people about the benefits of wilderness
Providing opportunities for direct experience of wild places
Campaigning for their preservation when threatened with development.
There is also a great article in this month’s Geographical Magazine (November 2007) examining the increasing ‘nature deficit’ in young people. Search out a copy if you can.
Best of luck to Andy Pag as he sets off on his truly inspirational journey to Mali in a truck powered by bio-diesel from waste confectionery. Andy is not only delivering an inspirational message to all of us, but is also a leader in remote communications so expect some great digital media on the site.
The BioTruck team are attempting the first ever Carbon-Negative driving expedition across the Sahara Desert to Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa.
To do this they will use a mix of carbon cutting techniques, including biofuels and offsetting, and the outcome is being analysed with independent assistance from CarbonAided, using industry standard methodologies to verify the Carbon-Negative claim.
Timbuktu is a city that has suffered from the effect of climate change. Once a river port town, the shifting sands of the Sahara have moved the river 20km away and are now threatening the towns very existence as enormous dunes encroach on the outskirts.
The Expedition will explore and raise awareness of the value of different carbon reducing measures, and will be powered entirely on a unique biodiesel fuel made by Ecotec from waste chocolate!
Ecotec are also donating one of their small scale biodiesel production units to MFC in Mali who will use it to allow local women to re-cycle their used cooking oil into eco-friendly fuel and supplement their income at the same time.
There’s a recycling theme to the expedition too; all the equipment used has been salvaged from the scrap yard and will remain in Mali where it will continue to be used. That includes the BioTruck itself.
Further to my comments below about the barriers to using any facet of web 2.0 in the classroom, I was pointed to this inspiring video from the Born Free Foundation. If you were in most schools in the UK, you wouldn’t be able to watch this video. It would be blocked because it is hosted on a media-sharing site.
Christian, the lion, was released into the wild, having been raised by keepers at the Born Free Foundation. After a year, they go back to the area where they released him, and called his name. Watch the video to see what happened next…
Preparing for a talk at Earthwatch, I had a look at their Myspace site. Earthwatch has 132 friends. In comparison Lily Allen is listed as having 405,900 friends on Myspace.
What can we do to help ‘world changing’ organisations such as Earthwatch harness the developments in the social web? Or is it a deeper issue of making saving the world ‘cool’ or as the teenager might say ’sick’, ‘chung’, ‘buff’ or ‘nang’?
Earthwatch are offering the chance for science and geography educators to get out into the field and work alongside scientists to create educational resources.
Through daily video broadcasts, photography and live chats, Robert and the 2041 team aim to bring the message of preserving Antarctica, promoting sustainable lifestyles and combating climate change to a wider audience.
Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop was recently interviewed as part of the 
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