GREEN DAY A proposal for local schools

What is Green Day? Green Day is a chance for the whole school to get involved in thinking about climate change and sustainability both locally and globally. It is a one day event for schools to start focusing on becoming sustainable institutions. It is a fun and flexible way to integrate green thinking (and practicing) into lessons and whole school activities.

Why do we need Green Days? As places of learning Green Days can help students and staff from schools in our local area to understand our impact on the planet and encourage them to weigh up the evidence themselves. The government would like every school to be sustainable by we want to become an Eco-School much sooner! Having a global education is important and international links are a key part of this, however our school is not currently sustainable. We need Green Days to kick-start an integrated global and sustainable initiative.

We will cover the 8 Doorways of sustainability at school… (DCSF National Framework for Sustainable Schools) Energy & Water Travel & Traffic Buildings & Grounds Purchasing & Waste Food & Drink Global Dimension Local well-being Inclusion & Participation

Some ideas for whole school activities… Wear green wrist bands Assembly run by our school Green Team Calculating our carbon footprints in tutor time Environmental pledge tree Plant trees in school grounds (donated)

Empty recycling bins, ensure doors are closed, turn lights off (red dot campaign), printer credit monitoring, stand-by check, taps check. Sustainable travel – school bus/cycle/walk/car sharing Litter Pick (in school grounds and community) Discuss with Canteen staff about locally sourced food Invite local MP and local newspaper Ask local companies to donate water butt, composter etc and to present to us at school

The Big Tidy Up

Some ideas for activities in lessons? Science – Insulation experiments, renewable energy ICT – interactive game to build an ecologically sound home (‘my sust-house’) Drama - Make a movie about climate change and the local environment Design Technology - Design a sustainable city, study fair-trade cotton and eco-uniform in textiles. Art – Make an art installation out of recycled material

From our local village…. to our global village Student council meetings with other local schools. New partner school with China - Share Green Days and work together on sustainability through eLanguages portal (10 local schools involved). Possible new Comenius project based on sustainable development.

Maths Create a climate change chart, this could be a pie chart or bar graph and find the mean, mode and median. We could compare statistics with partner schools.

ICT My sust house interactive game:

Tutor Time Every student makes a pledge to hang on a pledge tree.

Art/Design Use recyclable materials- research artist Peter Rush.

Geography Design a sustainable city.

History See website the future is in our hands- hange/climate_challenge/

English Script writing – Write a script for a film or play with two main characters disagreeing about the future. Class debate- Split the class in two and have a debate on global warming. Watch mr. king’s video.

Science Create your own biodiesel.

Competitions Design a poster/ flyer competition.

Campaigns to help schools become more sustainable

Let’s make it happen! Get your school involved and have your own Green Day