FEE Academy: Maltese Students First to Receive Young Photojournalist Certificates!

It’s been just over three months since we first opened the Photography for Photojournalism course on FEE Academy and it’s been great to see how many students (and teachers) from different parts of the world have signed up to give it a try!

“I really enjoyed doing this course because I learned how to take photos in a professional manner. I encourage other students to take this course as this will help them to learn new skills which is fun to do online and it's free of charge.” - Yasmin Micallef, YRE Malta Student

A big ‘Congratulations!’ from the YRE International Team to the first participants to successfully complete the course and receive their Young Photojournalist certificates; YRE Malta students, including Yasmin Micallef, Jasmine Geriwa and Hannah Mharam Mercieca and their teachers Beverley Micallef, Rebecca Ellul, Joseph Pavia, and Nadine Parnis from St. Margaret College, Cospicua Girls' Learning Support Centre! In particular, we’d like to acknowledge the time and effort put in by Ms. Beverley Micallef, who went through the course with her students and created some fantastic presentations to accompany parts of the course. These presentations will be made available in upcoming versions of the course. Lastly, a big thank you to everyone who has provided feedback for the photography course! It has been incredibly helpful in perfecting the course and making sure it runs smoothly.  

As you can see from the images below, the highlight has been seeing students getting outside with their cameras and finding new angles from which to explore their environment! Not only that, but students also get a chance to submit an original photograph of theirs for the ‘Practice YRE Competition’ activity. It’s a chance to practice nailing that catchy title, writing a description and caption and sending a message! On the left is a great example from YRE Malta student Kezayah.

“During this course I enjoyed mostly doing the quizzes and learning about photography skills.” - Jasmine Geriwa, YRE Malta Student

As of today, almost 300 people have signed up to FEE Academy with most learners coming from the UK, New Zealand, Portugal and Malta and over 120 people have enrolled in the Photography for Photojournalism course from YRE. The current round of the photography course ends on April 30th, but don’t worry - we’ll be re-opening a new and improved version at the end of June! 

Don’t want to wait until June to try a FEE Academy course?  On May 5th we’re launching the brand-new course “Strategies to Advance Circular Economy”! To get started, create an account on FEE Academy.  

Happy learning! 

• The YRE International Team 

Trash Hack Campaign Winners Announced!

The Trash Hack Campaign in collaboration with UNESCO is now finished and we received almost 500 entries from FEE programmes around the world! We want to thank everyone involved, this would not have been possible without our amazing network of active National Operators, teachers and students.

Since the campaign was in collaboration with UNESCO ASPnet, some of the best Trash Hacks will be featured on their website and be part of the global Trash Hack celebrations in May 2021 for the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development!

Our National Operators were invited to assess the entries and these are the results…

1st Place:

Pack your packages away!   
Portugal, Escola Profissional Amar Terra Verde

2nd Place:

Juice boxes used for lunch turned into waste bins       
Ghana, St K Michael’s School

3rd Place:

# TRASH HACK CAMPAIGN  
India, Delhi Public School Jamnagar

Special Mentions:

Based on our National Operators votes, we would also like to highlight these entries:

Green campaign Trash Hack              
China, Utahloy International School Guangzhou

Little ecologists   
România, Grădinița cu Program Prelungit ”Toldi” Salonta           

FROM OLD RUBBER TO GARDEN SETS          
Montenegro, Elementary school "Narodni heroj Savo Ilić" Kotor    

Keep Trash Hacking!

UNESCO is inviting everyone involved in the campaign to the 11 May 2021 Webinar “Celebrate Your Trash Hacks: Webinar for sharing, inspiring and calling for change”, together with the Foundation for Environmental Education.

This online event presents an opportunity for everyone involved in the campaign to come together and celebrate their Trash Hacks, share some good practice examples and encourage others to act.

The online event will take place on 11 May 2021 from 1.30-3.00pm CET (see your local time here).

Simultaneous translation between English – French – Spanish will be provided.

Here are some pictures from students’ Trash Hacks:

Brave New Frontiers for Young Reporters

YRE alumni heading to the red planet... Kind of.

Two Young Reporters alumni will be incorporating the crew of MDRS Mission #238 at the Mars Analog Research Station in Hanksville, Utah, starting on January 2nd, 2022. The re-scheduled mission will take place one year later than projected, following a prolonged pause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the associated travel restrictions, and public health concerns.

MDRS is one of four Mars-analog research stations currently managed by the Mars Society, an American space-advocacy non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the human exploration and settlement of Mars. In addition to the MDRS unit located in the Utah Desert, other stations exist in locations with geological and climatological conditions analogous to the red planet’s, namely in Canada’s Nunavut Arctic region, in the Australian Desert, and in Iceland.

In the 1990s, the project Biosphere 2 in the Arizona Desert had made an early (failed) attempt at habitat development, as depicted in the film Spaceship Earth. Nowadays, the Mars Society is one of a handful of international non-profits running a dozen Mars-analog habitats around the world, from Hawai’i to Antarctica and from Chile to Israel. Missions are also sporadically operated by American, Russian, Chinese, and European space agencies.

Portuguese Young Reporters alumni Pedro José-Marcellino and Marta Cortesão will be joining crew #238 as Crew Documentarian/Journalist, and Crew Astrobiologist, respectively.

Pedro, a Canada-based film producer, is one of the oldest YRE alumni/mentor and a member of the international jury. Selected by Mars Society for the original crew #238, he’s been preparing since 2019. Twenty-five years ago, Mission Antarctica, his 1996 YRE mission, occurred in Spitsbergen, Norway, incidentally around the corner from a present-day Mars- analog station. Pedro will be responsible for the mission’s media assets and public narrative.

Marta Cortesão, who is finishing her Astrobiology PhD in Cologne and works with the German Aerospace Center, was identified after a Crew Engineer drop-out during the pandemic created an opening. Working with YRE International Coordination and YRE Portugal, Pedro and Crew #238 ran a month-long search across the YRE network and unanimously selected Marta. She was officially approved by Mars Society’s mission control in February 2021. Marta will be responsible for the mission’s space science, and for operating its space observatories.

The remainder of the crew is composed by Commander Jonathan Yoke (USA, former SpaceX, Navy Seal), XO Sionade Robinson (Ireland, expeditions scholar and business professor), Crew Engineer Simon Werner (Germany), Health & Safety Office Robert Turner (USA, paramedic), GreenHab Officer Kay Sandor (USA, therapist), and Artist-in-Residence Agnieszka Prokrywka (Poland/Finland). Pedro and Marta will be wearing FEE/YRE patches, as well as national patches — Cape Verde/ Canada/EU for Pedro, and Portugal for Marta.

Each of Mars Society’s research centres comprises of a prototype of the Mars Habitat Unit (pictured) similar to those advocated by Mars Direct and NASA’s Mars Design Reference Mission for sending humans to Mars. These are multi-deck units, providing a combination of living and working space for crews of up to six people at a time, with additional space elsewhere in the station. Analog astronauts — or citizen astronauts, as they are often called — live in the pods as they would in Mars, adhering to a strict routine of personal and scientific needs, with limited contact to Mission Control, and going out into the analogous habitat only on prescribed missions. Life in the pods is exactly as seen in the SciFi movie The Martian. Activity outside the habitat requires operational coordination and donning Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits.

Developed in 1990 by Mars Society’s Robert Zubrin, with Martin Marietta and David Baker, Mars Direct is a proposal for a human mission to Mars, which is purportedly cost-effective, feasible within our current technological limitations, and possibly during our lifetime. The concept was expanded upon in Zubrin’s book The Case for Mars, which details the philosophy and practicalities of humanity’s expansion to another planet, and the ecological understanding necessary for the leap.

One of its major proponents is SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who has been very public in his large systemic vision for building a sustainable human presence in Mars over the very long term — something he foresees as well beyond his life, or SpaceX’s plans. The growth of such a system over decades cannot be planned. It is a complex and adaptive, developing as future humans make their own independent choices as to how they might — or not — connect to the broader system of an initially incipient, and then bustling, Mars settlement. Elon Musk is a supporter of the Mars Society programs, and one of MDRS’ two observatories is named after him.

Marta and Pedro, who represent 25% of crew #238, will be planting a FEE flag on site.

The Mohammed VI Foundation for the Protection of the Environment Inaugurates its Environmental Education Center in Salé

On Tuesday, June 18th 2019, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, President of the Mohammed VI Foundation for the Protection of the Environment inaugurated the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center, located next to the Exotic Gardens of Bouknadel, near Rabat, with the attendance of  the guests and partners .

The creation of this center, named by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, was initiated by HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa. The center is entirely dedicated to raising environmental awareness and education among all target groups: children, civil society, businesses, administrations, local government entities, etc. It is the culmination of 18 years dedicated to this mission, part of the core programmes that the Foundation has initiated since its inception in 2001.

The Hassan II International Environmental Training Center will enable the Foundation to boost its educational efforts geared towards all its targets, and rise to the world challenge of combating global warming.

The center will start with an educational corpus consisting of tools, either developed by the Foundation or provided by its international partners such as UNESCO, FAO, UN Environment, and UNFCCC, to name a few. The advanced research in environmental education that the center intends to carry out in collaboration with multiple partners, including the Ministry of National Education, Moroccan universities and major engineering schools, will lead to the development of cutting-edge educational content.

To rapidly disseminate this pedagogy on a large scale, the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center will opt for new e-learning technologies. HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa took part of a distance-learning sequence with the technological resources that the center’s four training rooms will be equipped with for online, live, group or face-to-face distance sessions.

These rooms will be a valuable tool for training educators who will work to change the behaviour of all audiences, in order for the latter to willingly preserve the environment through their daily actions and choices.

On the garden level, in one of the four multipurpose and connected rooms, open for green classes in the pedagogical gardens where the teaching takes place in a practical manner, three Eco-Schools participated in training sessions related to sustainable development, in the presence of HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa.

For the construction of this center, the Foundation aimed to set an example in terms of environmental protection: site access, use of ecological materials such as soil and timber, photovoltaic power plant for energy autonomy, rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment, waste management, permeable and tree-lined car parks, and landscaping of gardens in harmony with the natural environment. The experience gained during this eco-conscious project will pave the path towards developing a sustainable construction label specific to the kingdom.

Today,  the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center has become one of the Foundation’s flagship projects, set to reach high expectations: to be at the forefront, in constant renewal, adopting advanced pedagogical approaches, both in terms of content and tools for disseminating information. Its mission is to become a role model for environmental innovation, a space for meetings and exchanges, an incubator for ideas and solutions for the environment, especially for future PhD students.

Through its pedagogical vision, the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center, which is at the heart of the Foundation’s strategy, will revive the programmes of the Foundation and its partners in Morocco, Africa, and along the Mediterranean, who will be brought successfully together.

Announcing Earth Action Hub: A 3-Day Virtual Climate Event!

Connecting people to inspire change

IT’S OFFICIAL!

The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) is excited to be announcing the launch of Earth Action Hub, a dynamic 3-day virtual event dedicated to engaging everyone from youth to elders in learning about and promoting sustainable solutions to climate change!

Hosted by FEE, Earth Action Hub is the creation of the international, youth-led Organizing Committee made up of seven dedicated members: Barry McLaughlin (Ireland), Jessica Laxton (England), Joanna Tao (New Zealand), Kristina Madsen (Denmark), Paola Bay (Italy), Reeza Hanselmann (USA/Germany) and Samia Gomes (Brazil), all with the shared vision of building an online collaborative community that will serve as inspiration and support for continued environmental action across the globe.

“Our mission is to offer international youth-led virtual events and showcase resources that will give people the knowledge, skills, support, and hope needed to make changes in their daily lives that collectively will have a profound positive impact on the environment.”

SAVE THE DATES: 21-23 May 2021

The first annual Earth Action Hub event will be kicking off on Friday, May 21st at 14:00 UTC, starting with an Opening Ceremony filled with individuals from around the world and diving straight into a variety of talks, conversations and workshops. We’ve got over 24 hours of fun, dynamic and educational activities and sessions planned so Earth Action Hub is sure to be a success! And everyone’s invited!

Since our goal is to highlight a diverse range of voices, stories and experiences around solutions to climate change, we’re fortunate to have a number of incredible partners and speakers supporting Earth Action Hub all around the world. You can learn more about our partners on the Earth Action Hub website - we’re adding new ones every day!

Help us support the creation and maintenance of the online Earth Action Hub website with a donation!

Follow us @EarthActionHub on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and share our posts using #earthactionhub!

Check out our website and sign up to our newsletter to join the Earth Action Hub community and stay updated on news both leading up to and after our inaugural event!

Interested in partnering with us or running a session at the event? Send an email to reeza@fee.global.                                                         

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Earth Action hub is hosted by Foundation for Environmental Education, a member-based environmental non-profit organization.  With members in 77 countries around the world, FEE is the world’s largest environmental education organisation. Through five groundbreaking programmes, FEE helps communities realise the benefits of sustainable living.

New Collaboration with Youth Climate Report

The Youth Climate Report is partnering with Foundation for Environmental Education and will participate in the Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) programme!

This means that videos created for YRE will be showcased on the Youth Climate Report interactive map found on several UN websites. We believe this collaboration provides all of us the opportunity of “speaking youth to power”!

The Youth Climate Report is a multilinear, interactive, database documentary film project presented on a platform of a Geographic Information System map of the world. Simply put, it’s a digital map containing videos of climate research produced by the global community of youth from 2008 to the present.

Conceived in 2011 as a feature-length documentary film project showcasing approximate five video reports made by youth for presentation at the United Nations’ annual climate summits, it evolved into this interactive format to better serve the delegates, negotiators, and policymakers that attend these events. In 2016, it was designated as a partner program of the United Nations Climate Change secretariat and today serves as a resource for those attending the climate conferences. It is also available on various public websites and social media so everyone worldwide can interact with the project.

Global Youth Video Competition

The videos are curated through a contest administered by the UN called the Global Youth Video Competition. Each year two or three themes that will be prevalent at the COP conference that year are identified for the participants. The videos are submitted to an organization called Television for the Environment that administers the judging process. The top twenty videos in each category are then added to the Youth Climate Report project. The winners of the competition are flown to the host country of that year’s COP conference where their films are premiered at an awards ceremony. The winners are also given an internship at the conference so they can gain valuable first-hand experience in the international policymaking process.

See this year’s categories and winning videos here.

Future research on this project includes other means of engaging youth to be trained in documentary production and to tell their own stories of climate research and impacts where they live. Programmes like The Planetary Health Film Lab provide this opportunity to eligible candidates who may not have access to the UN competition, such as those living in remote communities throughout the world. As the project strives to be all-inclusive, efforts are made to involve Indigenous and technologically-challenged communities. Planetary health is an issue that affects everyone so it is necessary to give voice to everyone with this project.

Here are the films that came out of this Lab.

Youth Climate Report Executive Director Mark Terry is a professor of environmental filmmaking at York University and Wilfrid Laurier University, both in Canada. He runs workshops that provide training and support to emerging environmental filmmakers. Those who participate earn a certificate of achievement and their films are added to the UN’s Youth Climate Report interactive map.

Another workshop initiative, known as the Student Life Levy at Wilfrid Laurier University, saw a group of young filmmakers creatively working through the restrictions and limitations of a pandemic to generate a series of films for the Youth Climate Report. The training and production took place over a period of two months.

Here are the films that came out of this program.

For more information, please contact Mark Terry at ycrtv1@gmail.com.

SPACE/MARS OPPORTUNITY!

We are looking for a YRE/Eco-Schools Alumnus for astronaut/astrophysicist!

Did you ever dream of becoming an astronaut? Do you sometimes muse about going to space? Do you just enjoy looking up at the stars? If you do, this one-of-a-kind opportunity is for you!

Deadline to apply: February 21st 2021

— STAR TREK VERSION — 

[WHO]   Amateur/Expert Astrophysicist, YRE/Eco-Schools Alumnus/a, 21+ years old 

[WHAT]  Crew #238 of MDRS - Mars Desert Research Station 

[WHERE]  Utah, USA

[WHEN]  January 2022 (Deadline to apply February 21 2021)

[WHY]  Because you're curious. Because it’s there. Because space exploration is fascinating stuff!

[HOW]  You apply to join the crew through various levels of scrutiny to assess your skills and mission plans

— STAR WARS VERSION — 

[WHO]   

— At least 21 years of age

— From any YRE/Eco-Schools country 

— Able to travel to the USA in 2022 (COVID restrictions *may* apply)

— Current YRE student or YRE Alumnus / Legacy / Ambassadors

— Or Eco-Schools University Student (Master’s or PhD Level)

— Must: Astrophysics education or advanced expertise (or similar)

— Skills: Read more below

[WHAT]

Join YRE Legacy Student and Filmmaker Pedro José-Marcellino in Crew #238 of the MDRS - Mars Desert Research Station. Pedro’s first YRE Mission was Mission Antarctica in 1995. He has now been selected to join Crew #238 as Documentarian-in-Residence and Crew Journalist at the Mars Society’s space analogue station MDRS — Mars Desert Research Station, and is inviting another YRE alumnus/a to join in on board. In planning since early 2020, and initially penned for a January 2021 crew rotation, this mission has been delayed to January 2022 due to COVID-19 concerns. After a year in preparation, and another one still ahead, Crew #238 will be well prepared. You must be too. With one new member down due to this calendar change, the current crew — including a fellow YRE — has the unique privilege of helping select the 8th crew member: if you are a professional or amateur astrophysicist, that could be you.  The crew is looking for someone to operate the Station’s Musk Observatory (Solar) and Robotic Observatory (nighttime), and also spearhead their own research project in coordination with other crew members’ projects.

[WHERE]

— Outside Hanksville, Utah, USA

[WHEN]

— 2 - 16 January 2022 (deep winter)

— Possible rollover to a double rotation 

— Potential Second Mission (TBC): 16-30 January 2022

[WHY]  

In order to help develop key knowledge needed to prepare for human Mars exploration, and to inspire the public by making sensuous the vision of human exploration of Mars, the Mars Society initiated the Mars Analog Research Station (MARS) project. A global program of Mars exploration operations research, the MARS project includes two Mars base-like habitats located in deserts in the Canadian Arctic and the American Southwest. In these Mars-like environments, we have launched a program of extensive long-duration field exploration operations conducted in the same style and under many of the same constraints as they would on the Red Planet. By doing so, they began the process of learning how to explore on Mars.

The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a laboratory for learning how to live and work on another planet. It is a prototype of a habitat that will land humans on Mars and serve as their main base for months of exploration in the harsh Martian environment. Such a habitat represents a key element in current human Mars mission planning. MDRS serves as a field base to teams of six to seven crew members: geologists, astrobiologists, engineers, mechanics, physicians, human factors researchers, artists, and others, who live for weeks to months at a time in relative isolation in a Mars analog environment. Mars analogs are defined as locations on Earth where some environmental conditions, geologic features, biological attributes or combinations thereof may approximate in some specific way those thought to be encountered on Mars, either at present or earlier in that planet’s history. Studying such sites leads to new insights into the nature and evolution of Mars, the Earth, and life.

[HOW]

Crews don’t usually get to self-select. This is a unique situation. After one year of prep, and after losing one member, the remaining crew wants someone to fit with ongoing collective goals. The crew identified the need for an astrophysicist. That’s where you come in. 

If you feel you have the right skills, the process will take place in various steps: 

(1) Contact your YRE/Eco-Schools National or International Operator. 

(2) Vetting of your skills / education by YRE/Eco-Schools National or International Operator, and by Pedro, the YRE Alumnus and Crew Member. 

(3) Zoom interview with Crew #238 in late February or March — TBC

(4) If approved by the Commander, the XO, and the rest of the crew, you will be requested to write an official application to The Mars Society, with the endorsement of Crew #238

(5) Once finalized and approved by The Mars Society selection committee, you will join the monthly prep briefings, and will be given assignments like everyone else. 

You are expected to come prepared with a Research Project. There is a lot of latitude in this, and you will have the freedom to design your own research, in fitting with the Mission’s goals. If you are associated with a university, you may already have specific research topics. Your research should integrate both the “Musk observatory” and the “robotic observatory”. Special equipment training will be required before the mission. 

— Information at a glance, including technical specs, in the official website of the MDRS: http://mdrs.marssociety.org/mdrs-observatories/

— All training activities for the robotic observatory will be online, the training website is here: http://astronomy.mdrs.marssociety.org/

— A gallery of pictures taken by former Crews with the robotic observatory can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdrsphotos/sets/72157632353973526

You will also be on-board sponsored by FEE / YRE / Eco-Schools, so in addition to your normal crew duties, you will have a duty to represent FEE / YRE / Eco-Schools, and perhaps help bridge the gap between the environmental movement and the space research movement by way of your intervention and post-mission advocacy. As the official storyteller in the Crew, Pedro can help you define and execute goals, and will be your partner in representing our programs.  

For any questions, please contact Pedro Marcellino: pedro@anatomyofrestlessness.film

DEADLINE TO APPLY: February 21st 2021

For more information about the MDRS Station, visit: http://mdrs.marssociety.org

For a photo reportage about life in the Station, published in The Atlantic, visit: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/03/the-mars-desert-research-station/100472/ 

YRE Launches 2 New Courses on FEE Academy!

Happy New Year to our wonderful YRE community!

We are very excited to announce the launch of our first two Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) courses in the Foundation for Education’s (FEE) online learning platform, FEE Academy. Our YRE International team has put a tremendous amount of time and care into creating a YRE National Operators introduction course and a photography and photojournalism course for students (whether they have participated in YRE before or not)!

Made especially for current and soon-to-be YRE National Operators, the YRE National Operators course gives learners an overview of the YRE programme, how to set up and run the programme at the national level, and lots of tools and resources to support our National Operators in making the YRE programme a success!

Our second course, Photography for Photojournalism, was created to give young people anywhere with an internet connection an opportunity to learn about visual storytelling, develop their photography skills and become familiar with the YRE programme and our annual international competition. The lessons are divided across six modules, and learners are asked to participate in activities both online and offline. It has been designed so that learners can go through the content independently and at their own pace, making it a flexible and fun learning experience!

While we are proud of what we’ve created so far, we know it could always be better, which is why we will be continuously improving the quality and content of the courses based on the feedback we receive from you, the learners.

Curious? You can easily enroll any time before March 1st. Individuals who have enrolled in the courses will then be able to participate in the courses starting from January 15th until March 19th.

Itching to get started on a course? First, go to FEE Academy and create an account. Once you’re a confirmed user, you can log into FEE Academy, go to the Young Reporters for the Environment section and enroll in the course you’d like to take. It’s that simple! Looking forward to seeing you in class!

- The YRE International Team