MAINTENANT Sustaining Now, who we most recently know from their DIVERSITY DECK collection in our 2020 IGGY game awards, are announcing a new venture and a new website to go with it… so who better than to tell you about it than themselves!
Let’s start with an introduction…
THE ECO HUB
“Here at MAINTENANT Sustaining Now, we have been on an amazing journey reaching families, schools and businesses and supporting them in their transition towards a sustainable future. We believe that the key to real change is through education and as a supporter and promoter of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), we have been championing UN SDG4.7 which requires all learners to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to implement sustainable development in their future lives and careers.
In particular, this became clearer and more focused once Teach the Future launched their campaign last year and really highlighted the lack of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the UK curriculum and school system as a whole. See our blog post about it here. Since creating our DIVERSITY DECK card collection, we have been developing some fantastic resources on sustainability for schools. During the pandemic, we have had a rethink about the best way to distribute them to the teachers and schools who need them.
The next stage of our story will be to create a teacher hub to serve this purpose and be a catalyst for the change that we want across society.”
Here is their launch announcement blog to explain more and with contact details!
“THE ECO HUB
So, our new website, THE ECO HUB, is soon to be launched. Having spoken to teachers in our work with schools, we have seen the growing desire for good quality, quick ideas to incorporate ESD into their curricula. According to a recent survey by Teach the Future, 75% of teachers don’t believe that they have received adequate training to teach students about climate change. For a more sustainable and greener society, we want teachers to have the confidence to deliver lessons which incorporate sustainability at every opportunity. Although we agree that the UK national curriculum is sorely lacking and indeed failing our children, there are many opportunities within the curriculum already where we can talk in a more thoughtful way and introduce empathy to our environment, other people and society.
We have always felt that because sustainability is such a universal concept, subjects and topics already taught in schools can be introduced in slightly different ways to get across a message of sustainability. For example, if you can introduce the ideas of magnets to children, we can also talk about the Earth as a very large magnet and introduce the benefits of our magnetic field; protecting us from the cosmos and making life here on Earth possible. If we can let children in on the secret of how important the natural world is to their everyday lives and give them the ability to see the interconnectivity of all of Earth’s systems and our actions, then they will develop the empathy, resilience and skills they need to protect our planet as they grow up and enter the work place, making positive choices and decisions for the benefit for all of us.
WHAT WE OFFER
We don’t want to overwhelm teachers with lengthy, expensive courses and extra qualifications that are only possible for one or two teachers within a school. Our brand-new membership only ECO HUB will provide bitesize 5-10 min courses which become available
on a regular basis enabling teachers to think about different topics and case studies in different ways and provide resources and videos to help.
Earth system education divides the planet into 7 spheres which are all interconnected and rely on each other. This describes out environment and gives children the knowledge they need to understand the changes which are happening to the Earth, our home. Science and geography are the most obvious places to start with the ideas of sustainability, but we will be offering cross curricular activities which can be used across the curriculum to enhance
what is already being taught. For example, PSHE and History have a lot to teach us about sustainability, especially when thinking about how we must be an inclusive and united society to make a success of our future.
We will have a series on inspiring people who have made a real difference to our future by advocating for sustainability on our planet. They come from many backgrounds with different nationalities which will promote the need for people and societies to work together for the common aim of preserving the planet.
In addition, we want to create a community of teachers swapping ideas and experiences. The website will be for our users, so we will be working alongside them and taking on board suggestions and feedback as we go. In addition, our “Positivity Corner” will be regularly updated with inspiring stories from the news, plus other schools and businesses who are taking the SDG’s on board and embedding them into their lives.
We certainly don’t want to reinvent the wheel, as there are already some amazing resources and lesson plans out there ready for teachers to use. Celebrating them and highlighting them so that they can be easily found and used will be of real importance to us. Why wade through the internet, when we have a growing library of tools and resources?!
Our content is based on our belief that sustainable development is universal and touches every aspect of our lives. We must be mindful of the consequences of our thoughts and actions. The world is too interconnected and global and we need children who understand and recognise this.
THE SOFT LAUNCH – 19th April, 2021
We are really excited about our launch, but it will only be successful if people know about it and use it. We would really appreciate you following us on Twitter @THE_ECO_HUB and retweeting our announcements and ideas.
There will be an introductory offer as we get everything under way and add to the site, so please do get involved at this early stage and help us improve for the future.
We would love your comments and feedback about our ideas using this survey and we can keep you up to date with the launch and how to find the website once up and running if you leave us your details.
Also, if you are an organisation or business and feel that you can support or collaborate with us in any way, please get in touch with [email protected] or [email protected] and we would love to chat to you.”
