Environmental workshops - update27 July 2022 (by admin) |
During the last week of June all of the children in years 1 to 6 took part in Environmental workshops to further develop their knowledge of how our behaviour impacts the lives of everyone around the globe.
This linked with our previous learning about the year’s Earth Day whose theme was ‘Invest in Our Planet.’ In addition, we also conducted a whole school literacy project around the book Greta and the giants, writing speeches, letters and stories to raise awareness of the actions of Greta Thunberg, a prominent activist for climate change and the environment.
The workshops were conducted by Philip Hunton, who runs Green Up Your Act. With a passion for earth issues which was ignited by his own school assemblies, Philip has blending his History of art education and personal experience of working in ecological structures such as the Earthship in Brighton, Philip has created a series of educational sessions, which deliver important ecological knowledge to children of Primary and Secondary school age whilst enabling the children to create an environmentally friendly object they can take home.
Each phase group studied a different ecological concept which was differentiated to their knowledge and maturity.
In years 1 and 2 the children learnt about the effects of plastic in the ocean, where it comes from and what we can do about it. They looked at live footage from a beach to look at who was there and what pollution was present and what we, as individuals, can do to reduce this. The children then made cork fish with recycled plastic scales.
In years 3 and 4 Mr Hunton spoke with the children about their knowledge of environmental issues, recycling and reducing. We looked at a presentation about the Brighton Earthship, a house designed to be constructed from reused materials and which uses renewable energy sources for its means of power. We also compared this to various other eco homes created in Mexico and other countries around the world. The children created hard backed writing books from recycled maps.
In years 5 and 6 the children looked at similar issues to years 3 and 4 but at a much greater depth and discussed the long-term impact of the issues at hand as they have a greater experience and understanding of what these issues are and the potential consequences. The year 5s and 6s made wallets out of juice cartons as a memento to take home.
This is the first set of workshops which we have been able to hold following school reopening and their impact in both knowledge and enrichment has been evident by the number of children and teachers who have spoken to me in passing about how much they enjoyed the workshops and how much they learnt.
Thank you
