Eco-Schools National Eco-Committee Advent Calendar Day One!
Welcome to the Eco-Schools Advent Calendar 2021. Over the next five days, we will be introducing the world to the 22 members of our first ever National Eco-Committee! Made up of 10-18 year-olds the National Eco-Committee will be working with awarding body OCR to promote environmental education and the Eco-Schools Team to further develop the Eco-Schools programme. Read below to find out why each committee member thinks more green themes should be covered in education!
(Drum Roll Please)
Arshjot!
If young people are provided with environmental education, it offers an antidote to the plugged-in lives of today’s generation, which is the first to grow up indoors. Children who experience school grounds or play areas with diverse natural settings are more physically active, more aware of good nutrition, more creative, and more civil to one another. Environment lessons will get students outdoors and active, and help to address common health issues in children today, such as obesity, attention deficit disorder, and depression. It also emphasises cooperative learning with others, critical thinking and discussion, and a focus on action strategies with real-world applications!
Ashley!
I wanted become a member of the National Eco-Committee because I believe that the curriculum should be modified to accommodate for the current situation we live in, focused on key issues in the 21st century, including climate change, to ensure that future generations are equipped with a broad set of skills and information to tackle these complex issues. I want green themes to be integrated into Mathematics, Engineering, Arts, History etc because everyone plays a role in helping protect planet Earth and they need to have a good understanding of green themes to create the right policies as politicians, build sustainable structures as engineers, and run environmentally friendly companies as businessmen.
Blake!
Computer science- technology has had a big influence on the environment that is both positive and negative. Through the use of computers there has been affects on the environment in various ways such as a mass use of energy consumption and the waste of technology. Some ways we could counter-balance this would simply using more eco friendly computers in schools that are easily repairable, sustainably made and also energy efficient. If one computer in a school was left on for 24 hours a day it would dump 1500 pounds of C02 into the atmosphere per year and a single tree only absorbs between 3-15 lbs of C02 each year, this means that 100-150 trees would be needed, to offset the yearly emissions of one computer constantly left on all the time.
Caitlin!
I believe climate change; sustainability and the environment could be involved in the economics curriculum. As a subject and industry that relies heavily on oil and fossil fuels, I think it would be good to learn about sustainable sources of energy and how the loss of a commodity such as oil, would impact the global economies and growth in different countries. I think it would also be good to learn about how fossil fuels and coal have allowed us to grow and heavily influence industrial revolutions. But with new technology, research and initiative we should move towards a greener economy.
