Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this forum and I hope you are all feeling wonderfully delicious this evening 

I wanted to give you the opportunity to let your immaginations run wild for a moment!

My daughter's school (it's an Eco School) is working hard to improve its sustainability and I want to hear your ideas.
From the tiny to the HUGE, what could be done to increase the sustainability and decrease the carbon footprint?

Looking forward to your creative replies,
Starchild x

Hi, pleased that you've joined us.
An "Eco school"- wow- whats that?!Where are you?- built to be "green", or teaching in a "green" way?
All the obvilous things you do in a house would probably apply- veg patch, compost heap, "water hippos" in the toilets, insulation, keeping doors/ windows closed and draft-free, recycling.
On a bigger scale- Cycle parking, with cycle proficiency training (maybe free fluorescent bibs), walking bus,
water harvesting- and then use the water for flushing the toilets/ cleaning,
Camping in the school field- the school Emily will hopefully go to does an annual school camp with parents and children on their field.
Join up with local farms and exchange work experience by the school children for discount food,
Have some chickens for the children to care for.
A school in Brighton has a wind turbine- don't know how much energy it produces though, but is always going like the clappers!
Sure there are better ideas out there too.
Gill

Hi 

A wonderfully, sunny day to you all. If it's not shining in your sky, then make sure it is shining in your heart.

An Eco School is an award scheme that enables a school to be more sustainable. It's great in that it encourages the children to think about their actions, and hopefully take some of those actions home with them and on into their adult life…......

My dd's school is having its assessment next week for our Green Flag status - yay! (that's the highest award) and what is so lovely is that, despite being in a socially deprived area, we've made lots of changes that *don't* cost the earth. Our long term dream is to have solar panels and wind turbines, of course, but we've done so much already by changing habits. And the children really do care. I'm so proud that these things are just second nature - they get really upset if someone drops litter and some of them go around and check that lights have been turned off etc.

Thanks for your ideas Gill - the cycle parking and the idea of networking with farms are brilliant!

You can read more about Eco schools on their website: http://www.eco-schools.org.uk

Starchild x

hi starchild, i have heard about the eco awards, they are really great - makes me feel a whole lot better about my daughter going to 'a normal school'.

do they encourage walking to school? schools near us have organise walking busses, where children meet at a designated point with adults, and walk to school.
putting something in the loos (a brick?) to lessen the water used per flush,
do they grow veggies? my dads school has just built some raised beds - they look brill!
ooh,this is hard as i guess they are doing all the obvious ones. i will have to have a think….

Thanks Ecomum,

Yes, they do / are doing all of those - we're scrubbing bricks this week, in fact! But it's a trial as it is a modern school and apparantly they cannot be put in all toilets becuase they are low flush anyway, so we'll see.

You're right; it is hard to think of new things, but I really appreciate your thoughts!
Well done to you dad for building the raised beds; that's wonderful  

Have a lovely day,

Starchild x

Hi- if the bricks don't work there is a gel pack which can be used in "water saving" loos- google "save-a-flush" -havn't tried them myself but should work
Gill

Thank you Gill - we will look at those if the recycling of old bricks doesn't work  ;D

For the loos, they went into a school on It's Not Easy Being Green and used old milk cartons with the tops cut off and weighted down with stones, so that could be worth a try

the replies here have been so innovative - thank you!

We had our assessment for the green Flag award today; so fingers crossed for that! 

Starchild x

Hello all - I've been reading the posts on this website with great interest - it's fantastic to know that green is definitely the new black!

Just a bit more about the Eco Schools programme - part of a wider international movement, it's a truly inclusive, whole-school approach to a more sustainable way of life that's been active in the UK since 1994. It's devolved to the national governments of the four 'home nations' and currently, Scotland leads the world in terms of the percentage of schools participating - nearly 88% of local authority schools have signed up, and 15% have achieved the top award - the Green Flag.

Schools are asked to follow a logical, seven-part programme with a 'menu' of eight environmental topics. In Scotland (as in the rest of the UK), there are three levels of award - Bronze, Silver and the coveted Green Flag. Schools must renew their Green Flags every two years.

The Eco Schools Scotland website (http://www.ecoschoolsscotland.org) contains loads of useful information on how to get going as an Eco School and, most importantly, what pupils themselves can do to make a difference.

It's important to remember, however, that it's the quality of the teaching and learning that the assessors are interest in on a Green Flag assessment visit - it would be very unfair to penalise staff and pupils that are housed in poor-quality buildings through no fault of their own!

Eco Schools are always delighted to have parental involvement in their eco work, so if you're interested in helping out, it may be worth approaching your local school to see if they need a hand…!

Good luck!

Kirsten
Senior Officer, Eco Schools Scotland