Grimsdell breathes life into ‘The lungs of the World’

At Grimsdell today we participated in ‘Just One Tree’ Day. This is a non-profit initiative designed to support the fight against global warming by planting trees. The children today paid money to wear their own clothes and learnt about the impact of deforestation and what a difference in planting and replacing trees can make on the environment.

This project forms part of our overall commitment to educating children about climate change and making them environmentally aware and responsible. As a whole, the notion of climate change can be quite abstract for children and it is best handled within the realms of their own experience. We tackle this as an integrated part of our Outdoor Learning and Forest School Curriculum in a variety of ways.

The children learn to appreciate and respect the environment, enjoying its beauty, naming the trees and being at one with nature. This ultimately builds a relationship with the outdoors that children will respect and own as they get older.
This relationship then leads to a sense of responsibility and a desire to care for the environment.
Whilst in Forest School pupils begin to notice their impact on the environment. The paths get worn down, the bracken begins to get beaten back and the area used is trodden by human feet.
We then endeavour to move Forest School so that the land can recover and grow back. Experiencing this impact and seeing it with their own eyes is a very natural but effective way of delivering basic climate change education to our children

The ‘Just One Tree’ Day has allowed us to take this to the next level by actively sharing with children the effects of deforestation and empowering them to make a difference by combating it with positive action. We hope that this combined with our love of the outdoors will instill a life-long love of nature and a desire to protect it in our Grimsdell pupils.