Encouraging an eco-friendly classroom
Being ecologically friendly or eco-friendly, is to avoid habits that are harmful towards the environment. These bad habits include not taking every possible opportunity to recycle, use of single use plastics, and other habits that stretch beyond the classroom. The list goes on. The recent initiative to replace eco-unfriendly plastic straws, with new and improved paper straws, demonstrates that eco-friendliness can be promoted in any environment. So, there is no better place than centres of education to encourage students to foster good, ecological habits.
1) Jumping right into a huge habit can often dishearten students, so it’s essential to begin with a small starting point. A great example of this would be making a bin or draw where students can put paper that they have only used one side of. If a student then needed some scrap paper, instead of taking a fresh new sheet, they can take paper out of this draw. This prevents any waste and has a slight contribution to the environment.
2) An essential step to make a change is to recycle. There are incredible benefits to recycling and by integrating this into the classroom, it enhances a student’s understanding which encourages them to reflect on tasks outside of school too. The benefits include reduction of pollution, protection of wildlife and reducing the size of landfills, etc. We recommend creating a presentation and session about recycling so students know it back to front, and that, is key.
3) In the classroom, we can encourage recycling by adding labelled bins for the different materials that students may throw away. Additionally, we can make the bins easier on the eye, so students are more likely to take note of it. An idea for younger students would be an animal, such as a frog that identifies as a bin, where students put rubbish through the frog’s mouth. It may sound silly, but it reminds the students what we could be potentially harming if we don’t recycle, whilst also containing a light tone to the movement.
4) With the rapid advances in technology over the years, we can take advantage of this high demand and introduce devices such as laptops or iPads in the classroom. By doing this, it reduces how much material we or the students print off. Instead of printing out thirty sheets of paper to hand each person in the class, we can use more eco-friendly solutions which incorporate a more positive environment. For example, we can use the software ‘AB Tutor’ which can help to share your desired tasks amongst the students, in which they can complete on their device. A bonus with this is that you can view each student’s notes, to make sure they stay on task via the screen sharing facility. In addition, we can utilise file sharing, which prevents the students from printing out their work onto paper. These examples not only have their own benefits educationally wise, but also reinforces that being eco-friendly has only positives for the classroom.
5) There are tons of classrooms in places of education, and it is the teachers job to make sure that the lights are turned off if the classroom isn’t in use. Alongside with this, scheduling computers or other devices to enter sleep mode/turn off, helps with unnecessary use of electricity. With the sleep mode feature, very little battery power is used, and therefore uses a minimal amount of electricity. These two examples are effective, as it will help encourage the student to become more eco-friendly and strengthens their understanding of the basic habits we can all do to help the environment. Such actions will also help to save your school money too.
So, what better time to start than now. Casually add eco-friendly posters around the classroom to enlighten the group of the importance of being eco-friendly. Teaching students the benefits of being eco-friendly at a young age prepares them and helps them possess good environmental habits.