7 - 11 years (Key Stage 2)
Our lesson ideas are intended to enhance learning and embed sustainability into your teaching.
They are ideas designed to inspire and provoke further questioning and investigation by young people into social and environmental issues. They can be adapted in a variety of ways to suit your needs. See 18. Save heat energy, our lastest lesson plan linking Energy and Maths.
To see which subject areas the lesson ideas cover and how they link to the curriculum download our KS2 curriculum grid. To find out how they fit with the Eco-Schools nine topics, download our Eco-Schools KS2 topic grid.
Can't find what you're looking for? We have some more Key Stage 2 resources based around global citizenship and community cohesion developed in partnership with the Love Where You Live campaign. Visit our campaigns area to find out more.
There are also lots more free teaching resources on the Pod at www.jointhepod.org
Lesson Ideas
1. Museum Curators AD 3001 (download pdf)
Your challenge is to select 10 items powered by battery or electricity and mount them as if in a museum exhibition in 3001.
2. The big drip (download pdf)
Investigate where most water is used in your school. Discover why water is important, how easy it is to waste it and what can be done to reduce water use.
3. See the light (download pdf)
Discover the sources of light and investigate how it travels. Use this knowledge to assist the growth of plants that have limited access to light. Gain an appreciation that some plants need more light to thrive than others.
4. The investment pot (download pdf)
To look at savings that have been achieved across the school by taking a more sustainable approach to running the school, and make bids on how best to spend and reinvest it in school.
5. Solar in the community (download pdf)
To challenge schools to see if they can engage members of the local community and business groups and show off one of their projects.
6. A room with a history and a future (download pdf)
To compare and contrast a room and how it looked in the past, in the present and what it might look like in the future, taking into account social development and changes in energy, water use and the curriculum!
7. A growing enterprise (download pdf)
To set up a market garden company, cooperative or social enterprise growing vegetables and selling them locally.
8. How gardens grow (download pdf)
To discover that we face different challenges in different parts of the world. We are not all afforded equal opportunity. Life’s not fair!
9. The rap (download pdf)
To produce a section of rap that will be heard in the middle of the song Breathe, the Eco-Schools anthem, and which could be used as the school’s Eco-Code or mission.
10. Designs on dance (download pdf)
To choreograph a dance, incorporating up-cycled fashions, to accompany the anthem Breathe.
11. Eco festival (download pdf)
To organise a sustainable event.
12. Global links (download pdf)
To set up a link with a school from another continent in order to gain an appreciation of the cultural differences and economic and environmental challenges faced by our link schools.
13. Street furniture (download pdf)
To undertake a survey of your neighbourhood over a period of time and make proposals for improvements in the street layout.
14. The Water Cycle (download pdf)
To understand how the water cycle works and how companies and individuals all have a role to play to ensure we minimise the effects upon the environment
15. Pollution Game (download pdf)
To explore food chains in a freshwater habitat and discover the effects of pollution within a food chain.
16. Water Quality Testing – Practical Investigation (download pdf)
To investigate the quality of a local water course and determine the possible sources and affects of pollution.
17. The Importance of Water (download pdf)
Discover why water is important and the impacts of a shortage of water in other parts of the world. Find out what can be done to reduce water use.
18. Save heat energy (download pdf)
Use maths skills to calculate potential savings in school. Take part in an advanced energy review of raditors and heat energy.
Download all our lesson ideas as a .zip file