Area 6 : News & Views

FOCUS

WILDFOWL & WETLANDS TRUST - an educational website which offers (free!) a comprehensive range of National Curriculum-linked, cross-curricular materials about water, wetlands and wetland life.

The site includes lesson plans, factfiles, data sets, images and online games, and has been designed for use at both home and school - click here for more details. Our thanks to Mark Austin for forwarding this graphic for the site here (graphics on the WWT site itself are copyrighted).

Every year, thousands of steel shipping containers come to the end of their working life, and can be difficult to dispose of. Professor Richard Martin and Soren Ludwig realised that they would provide inexpensive building blocks for construction, and founded Global Peace Containers, a non-profit organization which has perfected a system to convert old containers into schools, emergency housing, clinics and community buildings. Click here for more information about this amazing project.

In a unique co-operation between Israel, Palestine and Jordan, children follow the migration routes of soaring birds and at the same time make friends in neighbouring countries. This Education project is multi-disciplinary and children learn geography, physics, biology and IT and simultaneously take a big step towards peace. They communicate with other children along the migration route, following the birds. Project management hope that the children this way will become more open-minded and will recognise the truth that:

MIGRATING BIRDS KNOW NO BOUNDARIES

How to recognize birds, by color, shape and markings, with to-size drawings
- What birds like to eat, with projects, recipes and simple feeder plans
- How birds drink and bathe, with information and examples of "easy-to-do" bird baths
- Where birds live, with bird nest descriptions

available from the National Bird-Feeding Society, Illinois

Check out the NPFA database of fields under threat in your area (UK only) - this incomparable resource makes sobering reading.

a special tribute to an extraordinary lady

Vinny Lauwers is a 32-year-old paraplegic. On December 19 1999, he set sail upon his ultimate quest, to be the first disabled person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world.

You too can be part of the Parasail Vision Quest. Vinny says: "Through the marvels of modern technology, you are invited to climb aboard and set sail with me as my story unfolds. What I can tell you is that, my quest is not for me alone, I am also undertaking this voyage to help enhance the quality of life for disabled and disadvantaged kids.

"This world first epic voyage will take around six months to complete. During this time I will take you on a spectacular journey via satellite to your screen through my regular diary updates and photos taken by me from aboard Vision Quest."

Visit the Parasail Vision Quest website to find out more, or click on the map above for Vinny's current position.

*** Vinny arrived home on Saturday 12th August 2000, as you'll probably know from TV / Radio News. Photos of his homecoming are now up on his website (click the map above, and select "Gallery") and we're told a TV documentary will be available in due course.

Though this all happened some while back now, we're leaving this in place on our site along with all the "Latest News" updates during the time of the voyage, as our tribute to Vinny Lauwers' extraordinary courage in braving the elements single-handed during his landmark world voyage, so as to raise funds to help disabled and disadvantaged children. "Parasail Caring for Kids" is an ongoing project - for details click the map above and select "updates".

Fittingly, on 24th May 2001 Vinny received the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year award.