ECO-FRIENDLY LESSONS
What do we mean by eco-friendly lessons?
With eco-friendly lessons, we can derive two different ways we can take this phrase, both of which we can do to help the environment. The first form of eco-friendly lessons would involve teachers doing their normal lessons but instead of printing out worksheets, they could view it online or move into the ICT suite and download the sheets on everyone’s computers. Eco-friendly lessons would be helpful as it will reduce the use of paper and reduce Climate Change. It will help you to do your thing to help out.
The second form of an eco-friendly lesson is a workshop or lesson which focuses specifically on educating others about climate change and the environment. For example, the Courageous Advocates hosted a lesson which explained the food chain and how the rubbish we humans leave on the floor gets spread to plants, which are eaten by bigger animals, that are eaten by even bigger animals, that then die because of the rubbish they have indirectly eaten. This isn’t the only thing you can do, you can explain to your students what Climate Change is, how to stop it and why it’s happening.
How can you plan your own eco-friendly lessons?
THE FIRST FORM OF ECO-FRIENDLY LESSON:
To make your usual class lessons eco-friendly, plan the lesson to ensure that all resources you use for the main activity are either on a whiteboard for students to reference or on a student's individual device for them to refer to more closely. Not only does this mean less paper is used to print, using online resources also saves time, as worksheets already have to exist online anyways before being printed.
THE SECOND FORM OF ECO-FRIENDLY LESSON:
When deciding on what topic to cover in an environment workshop, you first need to consider the benefits of covering specific types of pollution or climate change in relation to where you are and what your local eco-etiquette is like. For example, we noticed that around Marylebone many people litter, so we decided to cover that with Year 5. Next, you should develop a balance of different elements; first and foremost, the educational aspect of the class. What are you going to teach? Secondly, how you're going to make your point. In our workshop, we used a metaphor of students wearing 3D glasses to pick up coloured pasta, which represented animals struggling to find the difference between food and rubbish. The final main thing you should consider is how you're going to engage your pupils. Informativeness is all very well... until nobody pays attention, due to the fact they find nothing memorable to latch onto in the lesson. These 3 things must all tie in together; remember to look at the bigger picture, as well as the fine details, as this makes for the best result.
If you're stuck, click the button at the bottom of the page to have access to the Courageous Advocates lesson planning sheet, which comes with a few pieces of extra advice! For an extra challenge, see if you can edit the template on Microsoft Edge, to save that printing paper!
The Courageous Advocates’ job is to help the world to be a better place. That could be through
eco-friendly Lessons, sustainability Awards or using Ecosia. All of these can be found on our website where you found this article.
by Ingo, vice leader of the Courageous Advocates