Climate Action Week 2024
Climate Action Week 2024
Timed with the Scottish Government’s Climate Week, this year's Climate Action Week will focus on how our homes and gardens could look in a climate ready future with pupils invited to design their own sustainable home.
We are grateful to our friends from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), the Scottish Book Trust, Jacob's Engineering, Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA), and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) for support with this year's lessons.
Timetable and registration
(scroll down for full lesson, resource and competition details)
Early years-P3: 11.00-11.30am.
Tuesday 24th September: Animal homes with RZSS
P4-S2: All lessons take place 9.30-10.15am.
Monday 23rd September: Imagining our future with Scottish Book Trust
Tuesday 24th September: How to engineer a sustainable home with Jacobs
Wednesday 25th September: How to design a sustainable home in association with SEDA
Thursday 26th September: Climate ready gardens with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
All ages Assembly Friday 27th September 9.30-10.00am.
Early Years to P3
Our friends from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) tell us all about different animal homes. They take us on a tour of the Highland Wildlife Park, looking how wolves, squirrels and owls build their homes, and how the RZSS's new learning hive has been designed to be sustainable and support nature.
Following the lesson, children will be invited to draw a home they would like to live in, inspired by the animal homes they have seen during the lesson. Images of children's drawings can be submitted to education@keepscotlandbeautiful.org to enter our competition to win a selection of environmentally themed books (see resource for full competition details). Deadline for competition entries is 5pm Friday 4th October.
P4 to S2
A series of interactive lessons, inspiring stories and activities about creating sustainable homes and gardens of the future.
Activity for the week:
This year the overarching activity for the week is for pupils to design their own sustainable home and garden. In addition, after each lesson there will be a follow up activity to help pupils complete their design.
Images of finished designs can be submitted to education@keepscotlandbeautiful.org to enter our competition to win a selection of environmentally themed books (see resource for full competition details). Deadline for competition entries is 5pm Friday 4th October.
Lesson 1: Imagining our future
How our future homes and gardens will look and how we will build them starts with our imagination. In association with the Scottish Book Trust, Cindy Forde, author of Bright New World, joins us to spark our creativity and think about how we can solve the worlds biggest problems using solutions that are already available.
Following the lesson, download our word search resource and investigate key concepts.
Lesson 2: Engineering a climate ready home
How are homes built? What choices can we make to incorporate sustainability? What do these choices look like for homes in Scotland? Nicola Marshall from Jacobs joins us to explore solutions to these questions.
Following the lesson try our insulation experiment.
Lesson 3: Designing a climate ready home
In association with SEDA, we will look at how we can design our homes, inside and out, to make them sustainable. This means working with nature to create homes that have minimal impact on our planet and support our wellbeing.
Following the lesson try our nature scavenger hunt resource.
Lesson 4: Climate ready gardens
Join Eve and Caitlyn from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) to explore how we can work with plants to help manage the effects of climate change around our homes. From providing shade and noise reduction to offering drainage and wind protection, plants can help us all live better. Join us for a virtual tour of the RBGE's rain garden and rainwater planters, take part in some fun numeracy challenges, and get tips on how to think about the plants around you in new ways.
Following the lesson give our rainwater calculations resource a go.
Assembly
Assembly revisiting all concepts learned throughout the week, answering questions sent to our guests, and displaying all the work shared with us throughout the week.
Related Lessons
Timed with the Scottish Government’s Climate Week, this year's Climate Action Week focuses on examples of the people and actions that are helping us move towards becoming a net zero nation with restored biodiversity by 2045.
