To celebrate World Environment Day 2016 fairandfunky held their first ever fairandfunky GO GREEN Conference for Schools. The conference welcomed 56 students and 14 teachers from across Kirklees to celebrate and learn about local and global sustainability in creative workshops from Grow To School, The West Yorkshire Bee Keepers Association and fairandfunky.
All fairandfunky workshops and events empower people to take their own little steps to change the world and encourage people to think about the world around them: locally and globally. The GO GREEN Conference looked at topics from the Eco-Schools programme to do this.
Conference delegates first discovered the topic of waste – did you know 65% of all household rubbish can be recycled? Together we discussed what to do with our household rubbish – should it be recycled, reused, upcycled or thrown away? Children had lots of brilliant suggestions when challenged ‘Don’t throw it away, make something!’
Each child then took part in four different workshops throughout the day – each reflecting a different element of the Eco-Schools doorways, each workshop providing evidence for the schools to progress on their eco-schools journey.
With Grow To School children adventured outside to discover the world of biodiversity on our doorstep. They explored the grounds of Northfield Hall to find things which were dead and alive, provoking lots of fascinating discussions.
With the brilliant Yvonne from the West Yorkshire Bee Keepers Association the children entered a world of bees. They were buzzing with all the facts, viewed bees under a microscope, examined parts of a hive, each made a beeswax candle and even discovered what it was like to see like a bee!
In the fairandfunky workshop on recycling students used recycled bits of card and paper to make their very own pen pot holder bee! Did you know the average family uses 6 trees worth of paper every year?
And thanks to hard working mathematicians from Meltham CE Primary School we discovered that between all the delegates at the conference added together we had used 20,096 trees in our lifetimes!! Delegates learnt the importance of reducing paper consumption and to look for recycled products so that we didn’t continue to use so many trees – no trees, no bees!
In the fairandfunky workshop looking at global citizenship each delegate made their very own wallet from a Fairtrade juice carton – so that when they go shopping, they can use their wallet and think about the people behind the products as they shop. And look out for the Fairtrade mark!
We were delighted to welcome both Anna Portch from Eco-Schools England and Sal Kerry the Carbon Education Officer from Kirklees Council to the event. Both celebrated the eco-successes of all the schools. Sal sharing all the resources and opportunities available within Kirklees, and Anna presented each with a certificate to close the conference.
“We’ve been to lots of fairandfunky conferences and they just get better and better!” Gomersal St Mary’s Primary School
As fairandfunky is an accredited Eco-Schools provider all schools who attended the Conference can use the event as evidence to progress on their own individual eco-schools journey. To book a fairandfunky workshop for YOUR school to help this journey please contact helen@fairandfunky.com
Huge thank you to Conference Partners Seedball, Ramsdens and Social Progress for enabling each child to receive an eco-goody bag and each school to receive a wildflower seed kit for their school.
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