7 - 11 years (Key Stage 2)
Our lesson ideas, which have been created in conjunction with Eco-Schools, are intended to enhance learning and embed sustainability into your teaching.
They are ideas designed to inspire and provoke further questioning and investigation by children into social and environmental issues. They can be adapted in a variety of ways to suit your needs.
To see which subject areas the lesson ideas cover and how they link to the curriculum you can download our curriculum grid. To find out how they fit with the Eco-Schools 9 topics, download our Eco-Schools topic grid.
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Lesson Ideas
1. Litter hot spots (download pdf)
Conduct an investigation into the effectiveness of the bin provision in the neighbourhood and what might be done to make them more effective to gain an understanding of behaviours and what communities might do to enhance their local environment.
2. Who lives in a bin? (download pdf)
To produce an illustrated picture book for key stage 1 (5-7 year old) children called The Bin People which raises awareness of why we have bins and the benefits to the environment.
3. Not in my back yard (download pdf)
Investigate a local development to see if it will damage the local environment and community or if it has a social or environmental gain. Present a ‘considered’ voice that is either in favour or not of the development.
4. Streets and us (download pdf)
To conduct a survey of a designated area of the neighbourhood focusing on roads and pedestrian pathways in order to gain an appreciation of the balance between vehicular and pedestrian provision.
5. Local solutions for global issues (download pdf)
To make a presentation to the class showing the littering problems faced in particular parts of the world and the solutions, if any, being used to overcome them.
6. The community action group (download pdf)
To identify a need in the community and through seeking to solve it, better the local environment.
7. Mouldy dough (download pdf)
Investigate the use of packaging and packaging design to keep food fresh to see if it is a sustainable practice.
8. The telephone box (download pdf)
To look at why we retain features in our neighbourhood and propose an alternative use for the red telephone box.
9. Boating lake debate (download pdf)
To debate if a local pond or lake should be topped up with water and by so doing look at priorities for water use locally and globally.
10. Building an ideal community (download pdf)
To conduct a study into communities, their value and the role they play in local life. This is a long-term project and has a number of phases.