Eco Key Skills
These are the Key Skills for the Brook School’s Eco Curriculum. They are split into the 9 Eco Areas. When planning your yearly overviews, termly and weekly, please look at this to ensure you are always thinking about and covering some Eco aspect. Don’t forget to make it cross curricular and just part of everyday teaching and learning!!!
Energy
- Switch off fortnight is a Whole School event
- To learn all about the Brook’s Solar panels. Where they are, why we have them, how they are used and the benefits.
- To learn that everyday appliances use electricity; these include things that light up, heat up, produce sounds ad movement and that they must be used safely
- To learn that some devices use batteries which supply electricity and that these can be handled safely
- To discuss the importance of saving energy and the environment and to learn that our choices affect us, other people and the environment
- To investigate and consider alternatives forms of energy such as renewable.
Water
- To understand the consequences of wasting water, e.g. leaving taps running - and how their actions can affect others and the environment.
- To understand that although we have plenty of fresh water to drink, people in many parts of the world do not have a clean water supply and have to walk a long way to collect dirty water.
- To have an understanding that plants and vegetables need water to grow.
- To discuss the water cycle and the weather – the rain and the snow and how this affects the amount of water that flows into our rivers causing floods and droughts.
- To discuss all the ways that we use water and how we can reduce the amount we use.
- To ensure children understand the importance of washing their hands carefully in clean water before eating food.
- To learn about Water butts, why and how we use them and encourage all classes to use the water from then when growing in their vegetable beds.
Biodiversity
About biodiversity
Biodiversity can be defined as the variability among organisms on earth and within an ecosystem. Biodiversity is all around us – from wildflowers and insects to mammals and birds. It includes woodlands, meadows, wetlands and other natural habitats, as well as man-made places such as plantations, fields, canals and gardens – even ‘wasteland’ can be valuable for wildlife.
Your school grounds are great places to encourage children to do their bit and get them involved in hands on way with the natural environment. They offer a safe, practical and exciting opportunity for outdoor learning that can complement classroom-based activities.
- The Big Tidy Up is an Eco Warrior event
- To learn about local wildlife, pond life and minibeasts and how they live and affect our environment. (include the wildlife garden, woodlands, meadows, wetlands and other natural habitats, as well as man-made places such as plantations, fields, canals and gardens – even ‘wasteland’ can be valuable for wildlife.)
- To encourage pupils to work with nature and to be more nature friendly.
- To teach children that all living things have the same amount of right to be on this world but that some species are becoming extinct and that we can help to stop this.
- To learn about the natural environment focusing on flowers, vegetables and plants. Thinking about classification, why they are on this world, how and where they grow and how we can encourage them to grow to their full potential.
- To learn about the life processes of plants and animals.
School Grounds
About school grounds
The way school grounds are developed, used and managed can have a significant impact on pupils’ attitudes and behaviour towards school, each other, the wider environment and society. The appearance of school grounds can have a dramatic effect on how a child feels about the place and on how they interact with their environment, other children and adults.
- To create a richer teaching environment and enable pupils to identify links between topics
- To create a sense of responsibility and an awareness of nature within the school grounds
- To encourage pupils to value the school grounds as a place to play, explore and make a connection with the natural world
- To encourage pupils to explore and understand biodiversity in their locality and to appreciate the need for environmental care on a global level
Healthy Living
- To focus on the health benefits of a better lifestyle and understand how a healthy lifestyle can produce long-term benefits.
- To understand how an ecological life style, i.e. one that produces less pollution, can benefit the global health of the human race in the future
- To be confident and feel happy about talking to others when we need to. (Emotional health & well-being)
- To encourage pupils to make healthier food choices and learn about what healthy eating really means.
- To promote gardening and vegetable patches as a way of exercising and eating healthily.
- To look at how exercise makes an impact on our bodies instantly and long term and to carry out different forms of exercise.
- To look at supporting local producers and discussing the use of fair trade products, which brings in an economic/international dimension to PSHE learning.
Transport
- To learn that transport is causing detrimental effects on the environment and on our physical health.
- To learn that transport releases (pollution) many chemicals into the air, and some like carbon dioxide are contributing to global warming and therefore climate change.
- To encourage walking or cycling to work or school, or using public transport and to teach that by doing so it can provide exercise that can help promote a long and active life.
- To teach children about Road safety.
Litter
- The Big Tidy Up is an Eco Warrior event
- To teach children what rubbish / litter is (e.g.: cigarette butt, food, sweet wrappers...) litter can be described as ‘rubbish that is in the wrong place’ or ‘any item left by a person that should not be there’.
- To explain that natural matter such as weeds, or leaves that have fallen from trees, are not classed as litter.
- To teach children why it is important not to drop litter. (Unsightly, harmful to humans and animals and can cause health problems – it is a form of pollution.)
- To teach children that we can all make a difference by putting our rubbish in bins. (look at different types of bins: dog poo bins, general litter bins, recycling bins)
- To look at the rise in the amount of packaged and fast foods and how this is causing more rubbish.
- To teach children that litter can take a very long time to degrade (rot away), or may never degrade at all.
- To teach children to reduce the amount of litter they produce, reuse as much as they can and to recycle any rubbish they can.
Waste
About waste
Waste is defined as something that is unwanted or unusable.
- To learn about Reducing – e.g. packaging, energy & water waste, reducing the amount of food waste and rubbish by recycling
- To learn about Reusing as much as you can instead of throwing it away. Link to reusing old clothes and household junk.
- To learn about Recycling – make sure that waste is processed and made into another product wherever possible. Composting is also recycling: the nutrients in organic waste are processed and returned to the soil to help more plants to grow
- To understand where materials come from and have an idea how some materials are made e.g. paper.
- To understand the impact that landfill and inappropriate disposal of waste has on our planet and to understand decomposition and how nutrients are transferred into the soil in which our food grows and animals graze on.
- To discuss local and global ways of implementing change aimed at reducing, reusing and recycling.
Global Citizenship
About global citizenship
Today, as much as ever, we’re in a world full of vast wonders that many of us will never see, and we’re now walking in ever-decreasing circles. With crops of green beans coming from Kenya and a greater understanding of different cultures entering into the UK, young people need to learn how to work alongside changes, as well as the implications for all people involved. Young people also need to understand topical issues and their effects on a global scale.
- To understand that what we do has an impact globally and that we all need to work together to make a difference.
- To see how we are affecting climate change / global warming and the impact that is having on our World.
- To look at issues such deforestation and how that is being made worse and the affects it is having on our world.
- To look at promoting the purchasing of fair-trade goods, what it means and why it’s a good thing.
- To understand that sustainability means to keep something going forever. Sustainability refers to ensuring that planet Earth and all of its resources can continue to provide a home for humans and all other species (animals and plants) forever.
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