Too horrific for the geography classroom?

We’re looking to bring the issue of rhino conservation in South Africa to classrooms and schools across the UK in the coming months. At the moment we are looking at some of the imagery available and some of it is truly horrific.

Rhino horns are often cut off when the rhino is still alive, leaving them to die, suffering terribly. Images like the one below are all too common.

In the Far East, ground rhino horn is worth more than gold and is marketed as a remedy to a range of illnesses from hangovers to cancer. There is no clinical evidence behind these claims.

This increased demand led to 448 rhinos being poached in 2011 alone.

We want to make an impact with these images for your classroom to bring this home, but is it a step too far or justifiable?

Conservation’s Dirty Secrets

Watch Conservation’s Dirty Secrets: Dispatches, Channel 4, Monday 20th June: 8pm

Digital Explorer Director, Oliver Steeds travels the globe to investigate the conservation movement and its major organisations.
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Exciting opportunities for educators

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.

Google Earth Outreach

A great day with Google at the launch of the Google Earth Outreach programme for NGOs and charities.

You need chaos in your soul…

“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.

How can ‘world changing’ organisations harness the social web?

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’?