Children Encouraged To Learn Cooking In Schools

Kitchen & Housewares have an article on children learning about nutrition, food, & how to cook at school. Using food from the garden can be very rewarding, and save on money.

Read what`s happening in places around the world where schools are actively encouraging children to learn about cooking.

First look at vast 'book of life'

First look at vast 'book of life'

The first 30,000 pages have been unveiled of a vast encyclopedia which aims to catalogue every one of our planet's 1.8 million species.

The immense online resource is designed to greatly enhance our understanding of the world's diminishing biodiversity.

The creators of the database say it could have an impact on human knowledge comparable to that which followed the microscope's invention in the 1600s.

It is designed to be used by everyone from scientists to lay readers.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) - described as the "ultimate field guide" - is to encompass all six kingdoms of life, and even viruses - which many researchers do not consider to be living organisms.

National Garden of Wales Receives Money To Clear Debt

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is to receive up to £1.9m extra public money to pay off its debt.

It`s a one-off grant to put the £43m garden on a sound financial footing to attract private investment.

The money it receives each year from the assembly government will rise from £150,000 to up to £550,000.

Managers of the garden at Llanarthne in Carmarthenshire welcomed it as a "monumental milestone".

Two months ago, it emerged that garden managers were in talks with the assembly government to remove the debt and increase its annual grant.

Spring Has Come Too Early

The early winter sun hangs low and pale gold behind the hazlewood trees, which are themselves frost-etched into a sky of pale, cloudless blue.

Across the country, 50,000 researchers, part of the Trust's "Nature's Calendar" project, have reported sightings of natural events that should be happening far later in the year.

Red admiral butterflies are on the wing, along with bumblebees and wasps. And birds are beginning to nest.

The problem is, researchers say, that if some species start to emerge from winter dormancy earlier than others, the complex web of natural dependency will start to break down.

Birds will be raising chicks before there are enough insects to feed them, and flowers will be in bloom before the right sort of bug is around to help with pollination.

As spring springs around us in parts of the Nuttery, leaves crack with frost beneath our feet. And this is another problem - all this early-emerging nature is very vulnerable to cold snaps.

Researchers admit there's not a lot that can be done - no amount of government money can change how species react to the weather.

But they are asking for as many volunteers as possible for their Nature's calendar project, so scientists can analyse with greater accuracy just how quickly how British wildlife is changing.