World Environment Day is looming - Wednesday 5 June - and to celebrate this event schools from throughout New Zealand and around the world are being invited to make a pledge and decide on some sort of eco-action to make a difference in some way. These ideas and actions can be submitted on the WED Website. Every New Zealand school, wharekura, kura, early childhood education centre, and kōhanga reo can use this website to share their plans to contribute to a sustainable future and participate in World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June 2008.

Overseas schools can also share their own sustainability thinking on a day when New Zealand’s students will be first to see the sun and to show the way today! The organisers are currently trying to get schools from as many countries as possible to participate, so that the maps that become active on 5 June will show a broad coverage of participation from across the whole world. If you know of a school that might be interested in participating please pass this message on.

I’ve just been taking a look at PowerUp, a free, 3D virtual world launched a few days ago by IBM. The game is aimed at educating teenagers about alternative energy sources and environmental conservation. It’s really quite engaging, and makes great use of a 3D games environment that merges the appeal of fantasy virtual worlds with the educational goal of building wind and watermills to save the world. Playing the game, students work together in teams to investigate the rich, 3D game environment and learn about the environmental disasters that threaten the game world and its inhabitants.

Players meet Expert Engineer characters and experience the great diversity of the field. Conversations with these experts and engaging interactive activities allow players to explore ways engineers design and build systems to harness renewable energy sources as alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Players take on the role of Engineers, working together designing and building energy solutions to save the world.

Despite the strong use of the gaming environment, Powerup has definitely been created with an educational intent - it comes with notes for parents and teachers, including a list of lesson plans, and also has a strong emphasis on internet safety. There is no requirement for users to input personal details that may let them be identified. In addition, PowerUp players use a phrase-based chat system to communicate with each other. There is no blank field into which another player can type a message and send it to the user, rather, throughout the game players can choose from a contextualized list of messages to send to other players. The list has been created by the game designers and includes only phrases that are necessary for cooperation and positive reinforcement between players.

Unfortunately for me it’s only available for PC - no Mac version available (yet?). Take a look at the intro video below for more…

Here’s a great educational resource sent to me by my son-in-law this morning.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.