The System

 Fig 1 Networking nature with postcards: the basics

The following picture/text system is being assembled and tested in a school context to network classrooms

in Wales to support the new humanities-centered  Welsh curriculum. 


The system (Figs 1) consists of three components;

  • a geographic mother hub, which is a place that exemplifies conservation management in action;

  • a technical hub which provides the facility for sending, receiving, saving and displaying postcards or other kinds of BKNs;

  • a topic forum which stores knowledge and records discussion about a topic in environmental education;   


To begin, a teacher should have:

  • a topic to discuss; e.g.global warming

  •  a fact to present; e.g. national ecological footprints

  •  an opinion to state; e.g. syllabus development

  •  a request to make; e.g. please send information about….

  •  a destination to reach; e.g. an individual or an organisation;

  •  a technical hub as a collection of resources to facilitate the project e.g. a social medium;

  •  and a geographical hub as a place to refer to that exemplifies conservation management in action; e.g. a designated nature site.  

The rationale for exchanging BKNs involves the seamless integration of the process of making and sending them with the Geographic Mother Hub and the Technical Hub (Figs 2 & 3).

Fig 2 Relationships of topics with the mother hub


Fig 3  The complete system


The mother hub, which if the hub is a nature reserve is called a nature hub, is the source of ideas and information to distill into BKNs as distinct packages of knowledge about how the reserve functions as a managed ecosystem .  In this connection, animals protected in a hub can be said to be the watchers of the world, the gatekeepers of the environment.  Animal BKNs are the prime messengers of the state of the ecosystem and its management backed up with a library of copyright free digital resources..

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