So, just how much do we know about our own environment?

Jot down the answers to the following questions and see how well you do:

• Is the moon waxing or waning?

• Name your neighbours

• What time did the sun rise this morning

• Name four types of edible food that you can find growing in the wild

• Where does your rubbish go?

• Which country did the main ingredients of your meal last night come from?

• When did it last rain?

• Which bits of your rubbish can and do you recycle?

• Name four wild animals that you can see or hear in your local area

• Could you see the stars last night?

“We are travelling at breakneck speed into an age of extremes”

James Martin The Meaning of the 21stCentury (2006)

These problems do however have an interconnected set of solutions which can be achieved by a major transition. It is today’s young people who will be the generation that brings about this great transition.

The deep river canyon analogy… Dealing with controversial and contentious issues

Step 1- It all starts at home…

Blindfolded Partners

Favourite places

Sound maps

“Nature’s Pallet”

Smelly cocktails

Internet - school grounds and local area

Google Earth, Multi-map, Live Local

Get out into the grounds and local area as much as you can

Step 2a - Living Sustainably at School

• Carry out an energy audit, draw up graphs and interpret the results look at the Carbon Trust guidance for ideas: www.carbontrust.co.uk/energy

• Come up with suggestions about how to improve the school’s energy use and also how to make school more sustainable, recycling more, composting, generating own power through solar panels, wind turbines etc and consider pros and cons of these.

• Use DT to design an environmentally friendly school – using either 2-D or 3-D model plans

• Look up WWF guidelines on sustainable schools –Pathways to Change on the www.wwflearning.org.uk/wwflearning-home/pathwaystochange

• Look for information in the DfES Sustainable Schools documentation and order publications free:

Teachernet – Sustainable Schools www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools

Order a free copy: www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications

•SEF (s3), the new Sustainable School Self-evaluation – information and downloading available at: www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools/tools . further example of a whole school audit – “School Sustainable Development audit”

Step 2b - Living Sustainably at Home

• Consider how sustainably we live at home and in our immediate environment . Adapt as appropriate and discuss “How Sustainable?”

• Children could complete the “Environmental Quality Assessment Survey” and “Pollution in Your Environment” as a homework assignment and draw up results at school and give presentation of their findings to the rest of the class.

• Other assignments could include “Climate Change 1 & 2” and comparing scores in school the following day.

•Consider how we might improve their local environment and make plans for a more sustainable local area – make a presentation and be shown to parents, local councillors etc.

• Children calculate their own global footprint – discover what impact they make on the environment using: www.globalfootprints.org

• They can calculate their footprint using the online questionnaire– play the games and activities to find out more about the numerous related issues. Good cross-curricular links as well as the facility for calculating the school’s global footprint

• If you do not have access to the internet for all the children to do their own global footprint – they could do the paper copy, “Measuring Your Ecological Footprint” which has some interesting statistics at the bottom – or try out the one in Primary Geographer Spring 2007 p44

• Discuss the implications of their footprint and ways in which it could be reduced, what kind of commitment they need to make.

Step 2c - Calculating carbon footprints

Step 3: A sustainable world?

Use any available comparative statistics that you can find to illustrate how much of the environment we are changing every day, how much waste we produce on a global basis etc. eg for each typical UK resident, we would need 2.7 planets…(from Best Foot Forward website: www.bestfootforward.com)

The apple analogy…

Primary Geography Handbook – Chap 20 – Environmental Geography

Newspaper articles

Step 3: A sustainable world (cntd)

Brainstorm the major environmental issues

Create an information poster around the some of the issues

Use DVD to spark ideas, debates eg Inconvenient Truth – David Attenborough’s Climate Change series

rubbishwater

Step 4 - Energy Get children to run in the playground and then walk, when do they feel more tired, why? Think about the fast pace of our lives and how much energy we demand on a daily basis. Try to make a rough estimate of how much we use and what it’s used for. Consider the fact that without energy as we have it today, life would rapidly grind to a halt. Look at the problems of the situation that is created by this.

Brainstorm: What do we mean by energy? Where and when do we use energy Why it is so crucial in every aspect of our lives?Where does it come from?

Step 4b – Alternative Energy

Get the children to be creative in thinking about what other forms of energy we could use.

Consideration of sustainability of transport as it exists today – look into major forms of transport – understand that by far the majority run on fossil fuels – unsustainable

Get children involved in composing School Travel Plan

Design and make different models in DT - ascertain which would work most effectively and efficiently – small windmills, solar ovens, small dams etc. Use ideas from “Making a Solar Oven”

Brainstorm ideas about how to adapt for the future – look into alternatives - design for vehicle for the future – how is it powered, how does it work, what are the design features that make it efficient and sustainable?

Step 5a: Water and Food

Water conservation fits in well to QCA Unit of Work (Unit 11 – Y5 Water)

Invite speaker in from local water board

Role play a water related issue – siting of a new reservoir

Discuss problems of water conservation and provision in UK not just about less rainfall but also about diversion of rivers for use in industries and out of date pipes no longer able to contain the demand put upon them

Consider how much water we use and how much we actually need get them to take home and complete “Your Entitlement is ..”

Environment Agency – Water Tipswww.environmentagency.gov.uk/subjects/waterres/286587/287169/?version=1&lang=_e

Step 5b: Water and Food

Consider complex issues around provision of adequate food for all revisit apple idea and look at the implications for millions of people in the world of where they get their food etc.

Food miles – bring in labels from food children have eaten during the week – look up in atlas where they come from and estimate the number of miles their food for a week has travelled. Produce graphs (excel programme in upper KS2 –simpler bar graphs lower down the school) Discuss the issues and implications of food travelling this distance

Display a large world map and stick food labels all around it with arrows showing where food comes from, if there’s space, put their graphs around the map as well.

Share with the rest of the school through assembly or having display in prominent place

Step 6: What a Waste…

What happens to all our waste?How do we feel about our neighbourhood?• is it littered?• is it kept clean?• who keeps it clean?• how responsible are we for keeping it clean?• are we proud of it?• how can we improve it?

Carry out a “Litter Survey” and conduct a “Litter Questionnaire” to assess the environmental quality of the local area

Display results of surveys and questionnaires in form of simple bar-graphs and interpret the results Annotate photos to show where rubbish is – Is there a relationship between the incidence of rubbish and the lack of provision of bins?

Present findings to rest of school as assembly or display – even to local council and persuade them to put in more bins if necessary, Create an area for local art/graffiti work

Step 6b The 3 R’s What are we doing with our rubbish – for a week, look through the contents of classroom bin – what makes up our rubbish – does it all have to be thrown away or….

Make your own compost bin at school:

“Supermarket Science” Take the message home with them and get them to find out what they can recycle at home – what different bins they have – produce a graph to show this

If possible, organise a visit to the local waste centre – can prove to be an enlightening experience for all or get someone in from the local council to be grilled

Make the pledge to go green by completing “Living Green” – allow them to play their part

Guardian Articles: 5 Dec 2006 The Climate in Class http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1963498,00.html

6 February 2007 How big is your footprint http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2006238,00.html

Useful websites for Global Citizenship

Oxfam:www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet

Teachernet – Sustainable Schools www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools/DfES Sustainable Schools documentation – www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications

Books, story books and poems

Global footprints: http://www.globalfootprints.org

An Inconvenient Truth: www.climatecrisis.net Educational site

David Attenborough video series – Are we changing planet earth?

WWF Conference for Sustainabilityhttp://www.wwf.org.uk/core/Info on sustainable schools:www.wwflearning.org.uk/wwflearning-home/pathwaystochange

WWF’s on-line ESD course

GTT website with details of CPD sustainable development

Primary Geography and Education for Sustainable Development

www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk