Following on from learning about the Australian bushfires at the beginning of term and the devastation they have and are still causing, all of which has been exacerbated by the effects of global warming, last week I led an after school club on the importance of trees in helping to combat climate change.
The children loved this workshop so much that they began to make posters about how planting trees, both locally and globally, could help clean the environment. We also spent a fair bit of time discussing the merits of renewable energies; solar, wind and water, and how these energy sources can be replenished naturally without having any known adverse effects on the planet (https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy).
Whilst helping and watching them sketch, I asked the kids to tell me what they knew about trees, and two of the girls quickly stated that 'trees absorb greenhouse gases which are produced as a by-product of burning fossil fuels, and these are oil, coal and gas.' A little boy then shouted out, 'trees breathe out fresh oxygen that we breathe in.' Marvellous, but, the best part was that the children then asked me if they could present their posters at the assembly on Friday because they wanted to explain to the rest of the school how vital trees are for planet earth.
I arranged this with the school office, and apparently, the kids gave an excellent talk on saving trees to the whole school, and everyone was exceptionally really impressed by their descriptive artwork on the subject. Children were teaching children about conservation. What an initiative and how brilliant! If these young people continue to talk about the environment on the whole with such passion and interest, the future will most certainly be bright.
