Insects are everywhere – in backyards, balconies and the park down the street. In fact, numerically speaking, insects dominate the Earth with more than 5.5 million species. An estimated 10 quintillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 – individual insects are alive at any given moment. Because insects are small and readily available and can easily be kept in the classroom […] … learn more→

Education helps us share knowledge, develop understanding, and supports our connection with each other. As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, governments have been preoccupied with how to re-open schools. However, there has been more doubt about universities. Discussions about the rise in COVID-19 infections in student populations have often raised the question as to why […] … learn more→

In these days when a new educational reform looms over us (and it doesn’t matter when you read this), linguists, physicists, biologists, mathematicians and other scientists wonder if this time those who design the content will stop think about what children really need to learn and how they learn. This article presents some ideas about what is taught, […] … learn more→

The Australian government committed more than A$247 million over 2019-22 to continue funding chaplains in Australian schools. The National School Chaplaincy Program aims to “support the well-being of students through pastoral care services and strategies”. Schools are eligible for $20,280 per year year ($24,336 for remote schools) to appoint a chaplain. Since its inception by the Howard government in […] … learn more→

We have all heard about social media’s creation of the frightening new phenomenon of “academic mobbing”. Yet it never dawned on me how serious this could get until I became a victim of it, obliging me to devote much of my professional time to monitoring my accounts for reputational damage and libel. After I was […] … learn more→

An overarching criticism of the recent federal budget is that it overlooked the workers hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, namely women. However, the budget includes one promising, albeit small, initiative that focuses on this group. The government announced a cadetship program to help women to upskill in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), or to build a STEM […] … learn more→

Academics are among the most vocal critics of discriminatory practices. Yet when it comes to recruiting those in their own image, they appear to be among the worse culprits. A bright spotlight currently shines on discrimination affecting women and black and minority ethnic staff and students – and rightly so – but the effects of […] … learn more→

As COVID-19 continues to force many schools to operate remotely, cities throughout the nation are stepping up to provide free internet service to public school students from families of lesser means. Washington, D.C., plans to provide free internet access to K-12 students in 25,000 low-income households for the 2020-2021 school year. In Philadelphia, any family with a […] … learn more→

The current educational model is in crisis due to the health emergency of COVID-19. A remote education responds in these times integrating virtual learning, distance learning, learning at home and innovative pedagogies as emerging pedagogies. Today there is a local and planetary crisis due to the coronavirus health emergency. It would seem that uncertainty and economic recession […] … learn more→

The COVID crisis has exposed the destructive consequences of an over-reliance on casual labour across the economy. Australian universities provide one of the clearest examples of this. For the past two decades, universities have leaned into international student fees on the revenue side and casual workers on the expense side. This approach effectively shifted the risks of the international […] … learn more→