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When it's hot in the city, let green spaces cool you down!

WHAT ARE URBAN GREEN SPACES?

Urban green spaces (UGS) enhance quality of life and overall wellbeing.

‘Green spaces’ include urban vegetation, encompassing parks, gardens, yards, urban forests and urban farms – a vegetated form of open space.

UGS are easily adaptable, cost-effective and offer a plethora of advantages: from improving air quality, reducing temperatures, providing recreational opportunities, enhancing neighbourhood livability and adding aesthetic appeal to cities.

Urban Green City

Imagine cities that are not apart from nature—but a part of nature.

Cities where people and nature both thrive; truly flourishing communities where green space is seen as critical urban infrastructure that effectively addresses some of cities’ biggest challenges.

After the Shofar

After The Shofar
Jewish Climate Network podcasts. Guests discuss everything from renewable energy to Rashi. Guests include Alice Zaslavsky, Yael Stone, Osher Gunsberg

UN Environment Program

Facts about the nature crisis

Australian Conservation Foundation

Australia's national environment organisation.

Why are Green Spaces Important?

Our cities are damaging our health. Here's how plants can help us.

Renewable energy – powering a safer future

Greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat are generated through energy production, by burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat.
Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, are by far the largest contributor to global climate change.
The science is clear: to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, emissions need to be reduced by almost half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

Caulfield Bicycle Lanes

Glen Eira Guts Transport Plan
Ther are competing interests when bicycle users ask for more road space

Peer Pressure and Fitting In

When your mates pressure you to do or go along with something you don’t like, it’s a form of peer pressure. Click this link for tips and info to help you out in these tricky situations.

The Science Why People Follow the Crowd

Why people follow the crowd
Why do others influence us so much?
Clearly, others affect our behavior. One reason for this is that we live in a complex world. We use the decisions of others as a heuristic, or mental shortcut, to navigate our lives.

Why do people follow the crowd? The Bandwagon Effect

https://www.curioustimes.co.uk/entertainment/why-do-we-follow-the-crowd
The bandwagon effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to think or act a certain way if they believe that others are doing the same. For example, the bandwagon effect can cause someone to adopt a certain political ideology, because they see that other people in their social circle have adopted the same ideology.

Being Different. Thinking Differently.

“The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.But those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.” Francis Phillip Wernig

Video - The Lost Thing

FINDING THE MAIN IDEA The Contention in Persuasive Texts (4 mins)

Britannica

Encyclopedia Britannica This link opens in a new window
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Suggested search terms: "Geneva Convention" (Treatment of prisoners of war), "Edward Dunlop"

Individual Freedoms and Human Rights

This link explores the different types of rights, including human rights, and looks at the many sources for our rights and how they are protected.

Rights are a key principle of Australia’s democratic system of government. Our rights come from a range of sources, including international law, laws made by the Australian courts (common law) and laws made by the Australian Parliament (statute law). How we define our rights in Australia has changed over time and may continue to change in the future.

Rule of Law: Checks and Balances

At its most basic level, the rule of law is the concept that both the government and citizens know the law and obey it. It operates as a safeguard from untrammelled discretionary power to ensure the law is supreme and those in power are subject to the law.

A common way to check and restrain power is to divide power between the judiciary, legislature and executive arms ie the separation of powers.

Australia's Democracy Explained

In a democracy, the people have the power to participate in decision-making, such as voting at elections.

Each democracy is unique and works in different ways. In Australia, citizens choose representatives to make decisions on their behalf (this is called a ‘representative democracy’).

Human Rights: Individual Freedoms

Human rights are a set of principles concerned with equality and fairness.

They are not a recent invention - ideas about rights and responsibilities have been an important part of all societies throughout history. Since the end of World War II, there has been a united effort by the nations of the world to decide what rights belong to all people and how they can best be promoted and protected.