IS 2024 WHEN YOU START A MEDITATION PRACTICE? How can we HEL

For the past six years Founder of Meditation Rocks, Lucy Stone has taught mindfulness (and yoga) to thousands of children and young people in schools, wherever possible, teaching outside and helping children to have a greater connection with our planet. Mindfulness can play a crucial role to increase our awareness of what's happening with, and what we can do to help the environment, as well as deepen our gratitude for the natural world.

Last week The Wildlife Trusts called on the Government to announce the long-awaited Natural History GCSE and set standards for outdoor learning when the Department for Education publishes its ‘Sustainability & Climate Change Strategy’ in April.

The strategy is intended to shape how environmental issues are taught in schools. Currently, there are no requirements to help children develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the natural world.

Also absent are minimum standards for outdoor learning, despite years of evidence showing how beneficial it is for children’s health, confidence, and well-being. Children’s interaction with nature is also declining, with 60% of young people spending less time outdoors since the start of the pandemic.

The Wildlife Trusts are concerned the Government is at risk of failing to put climate and nature at the heart of education in the UK and are calling for:

• A GCSE that focuses specifically on nature and climate
• A minimum standard for outdoor learning, with children given opportunities to spend at least an hour a day learning outside
• Nature and climate education to be embedded across all subjects and at all levels.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says:

"The nature crisis and the climate emergency are inextricably linked. It's bad enough that we are leaving such an appalling, toxic, denuded inheritance for the next generation. But what's worse is that, in general, we're not even providing young people with the sort of education that will be needed to help them do something about it.

“For too long, nature has been largely ignored in education with far reaching consequences for the environment and for our own wellbeing.

“The natural history GCSE should have happened by now as should an increase in outdoor learning provision.

“The Government has the evidence that proves why these things are vital and has made international commitments on climate education – it must delay no longer. Nature should be at the heart of our education system and it’s tragic that has been neglected for so long.”

Founder of Meditation Rocks, Lucy Stone, which runs mindfulness in nature sessions and training in schools, events and for adults, supports The Wildlife Trusts calls for two reasons:

"It is well known that being outdoors in nature, and having a connection to our natural world is incredibly good for our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Not only that, it is crucial that our children and young people are taught about the environment as they are the next generation of scientists, researchers, academics, entrepreneurs, politicians who are going to make crucial decisions as to the future of our planet and climate change. Almost all of the children and young people we work with at Meditation Rocks express their concern, and anxiety over the future of the planet and so many of them want to play their part to help the natural world. Having an education which is informed by environmental issues is not only necessary, it is essential and now is the moment for that to happen." 

At COP26 in Glasgow last year, ministers for education and climate committed to: “the integration of sustainability and climate change in formal education systems.”

The 2021 Dasgupta review, The Economics of Biodiversity, concluded on education; “Every child in every country is owed the teaching of natural history, to be introduced to the awe and wonder of the natural world, to appreciate how it contributes to our lives.”

Education is critical to addressing challenges facing the natural world but, with one in four species in the UK threatened with extinction, time is running out.