There are lots of little and easy ways you can help to save the environment.
You can turn of your lights at home when you’re not in a room, which saves electricity. You can have baths rather than showers to save water. You can walk more places, especially to school, with your parents. This means less pollution of chemical fumes from your car, and it’s also a great way to exercise.
If you already do these things that’s great! Every family that is eco-friendly has an impact on helping to save the environment. As well as walking to school, you can also be environmentally friendly in school.
Kidgate Primary School in Louth is one of over 15,000 schools registered with the Eco Schools Programme. The Eco Schools Programme is a way for schools in England to make sure pupils are always doing things to help save the environment.
The Roots team took a visit to Kidgate Primary to see what sort of things they do at the school to help the environment. The school has also won a Green Flag Award*, for the efforts from teachers and pupils to be environmentally friendly.
The Roots team spoke to Miss Weir who is the ‘eco-coordinator’ at Kidgate Primary school, which means she is in-charge of all the eco-friendly projects that go on in the school. She told us how it is important to learn about being eco-friendly at school, because when pupils go home, they can carry on doing the things they have learnt.
As well as learning about how important it is to recycle and save water energy, there are lots of things around Kidgate Primary that help the environment. The school has a vegetable batch so the pupils can grow their very own vegetables and see how they develop. The pupils grow their own trees too – at the moment an apple tree is growing at the back of the school field.
The children, with help from the teachers have built their very own chicken coop and greenhouse.
‘The pupils take it in turns looking after the chickens, as they are a good resource for eggs’ says Miss Weir.
‘We sell them, use them in lessons or take them home.’
The greenhouse was made by the gardening club, and the pupils told the Roots team how much fun it was to make. Miss Weir told how it’s a good idea because then the plants are safe, and everyone can watch them grow. The ‘bug hotel’ is a cool idea, shelves of bricks, wood and straw for any visiting insects to run around in.
Do you do anything eco-friendly at school? If you think you could do more, speak to a teacher about taking part in environmentally friendly projects at your school, like the ones at Kidgate Primary.