GUEST BLOG: KS2 Sustainability Project at Stoke Park Junior School
I am still walking on the clouds of hope and youthful exuberance after having spent a couple of hours with the Year 5’s at Stoke Park Junior School. It was the most nervous and rewarding experience I have had for a long time as the 9 and 10 year old’s took me way out of my usual comfort zone in “business” land.
This story starts with one of our Education partners, Drift IT Services who came to us with a simple idea….
How do we help schools educate and inform children about the impacts that our consumption habits have on our planet and why sustainable thinking and actions will be critical for a better future.
The idea of a Key Stage 2 module focused on sustainability and aimed at Year 5’s, was born and Ryan Stapleton from Stoke Park Junior School kindly agreed to write the module and challenge his Year 5’s to create their own projects around sustainability.
Part of the Circular Computing ethos is our own vision of sustainable IT. Being able to show the Children the benefits to the environment of a Repair & Reuse philosophy by using our remanufactured laptops as an example in their classroom was a really cool experience.
BEFORE….
“This is a typical example of a laptop from a Junior School in Sweden just like yours”
This Laptop had seen lots of use and abuse (remember when you used to carve your name into your desk at school ?)
….& AFTER
“Wow, Its like new again, OK, I get it now.”
Sustainability isn’t a complicated subject when seeing a real example makes you believe that its possible.
Projects, Stories, Models, and the Google Engineers of the Future!
How do you judge and pick the winner from 30 sustainability projects in 3 classes in 1 hr yet still have time to speak with each project team and give them the earned respect they are due because of the care, work and passion they have all put into their projects ? Answer, you can’t and I failed to see everyone, for which I really need to apologise. I was so blown away by all of the projects, I ran out of time. In part, this blog is a thank you to all of the children of Year 5 that took so much care and attention to create so many wonderful and engaging projects. Thank you Year 5 @ Stoke Park Junior School.
I learnt that new technology & apps in the classroom are being used to help teach the Children by creating fun learning environments.
I also learnt that 9 & 10 year old’s are already being taught programming, how to create animated movies, making engaging PowerPoint’s and “how too” sustainability guides that their parents can follow in the home !
I saw some amazing PowerPoint presentations from pretty much every team, some of which would put any TED talker to shame.
Have you heard of “Scratch” from MIT ? I’m sure I sound like someone from a different planet but I really wasn’t expecting to see Children creating their own animated stories !
Some of the teams brought several of these technologies together to create multimedia models. These are 9 year old Children…. hello future Google Engineers !
As each Child in a team had a task to complete as part of their contribution to the teams overall project entry, it was really difficult to choose a winner. All the entries were really cool and well thought out with some inspirational advice for the future.
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Children really are our future and our teachers are doing an incredible job of nurturing and educating the young, bright, enthusiastic and hopeful minds of tomorrow.
If you think your School or organisation would benefit from a free Key Stage 2 Sustainability module and education pack, please feel free to reach out and discuss this with the team: enquiries AT circularcomputing.com
My great thanks go to Jane Moody @ Drift, “Mr” Ryan Stapleton @ Stoke Park Junior School, “Circular Steve” Haskew & “Marketing Matt” Trinder @ Circular HQ and all the Boys and Girls from Year 5 who were gracious enough to allow me to feel that I could still relate to the younger generation.
Because IT shouldn’t cost the Earth
