Eco Training Day at York House

On 24^th November four of our students were selected to attend the Eco Training Day at York House school. They were joined by 15 other local schools. During the day they had the opportunity to participate in a range of workshops focussed on practical ideas for improving sustainability in school. Using the findings of the workshop the students hope to promote the use of sustainable packed lunches with parents and students, complete a uniform appeal with the PA, organise a clothes swap and plan a food waste assembly that we also do with a primary school. Below are the students’ reflections of the day.

Jess: On 24th November 2022, four Croxley Danes students had the opportunity to fulfil a multitude of tasks and be a part of varying workshops at York House School. Activities included learning about animals in the conservation workshop, and which species were specific to Britain. During our second activity, we discovered how trade chains occur and the payment process for each role. We explored the trade chain of chocolate, major consumers of this, and why payment within this area is currently unjust and inauspicious. Towards noon, we visited the animals and were educated on how certain animals may be therapeutic for humans, and we further discussed how York House attempts to remain environmentally-friendly throughout their daily lives, whether that be with locally sourced resources, or reuse of materials. For lunch, we had vegan burgers and varying other eco-friendly sustenance, it was certainly different although delectable! For a penultimate activity, we were informed by Ellen from the Three Rivers District Council about the reverberations of fast fashion on the environment, and how the quantity of water used for a singular item could supply someone with decades of water.

Towards the end of our visit, we were conjugating our views alongside other schools on how we would be able to introduce environmentally-friendly activities in order to raise funds for charities, and how education begins with our schools, and due to children being the future of our biosphere, we need to be educated in order to aid it; as an entirety, we formed a manifold of ideas, and were able to come one step closer towards saving our planet.

Emma: In the Cassiobury Farm workshop we learned about the importance of animal conservation. We learnt that in the world there are around nine million different known species of animals, and in Cassiobury Farm they have a sufficient variety of these species from all around the world. For example, animals from Africa such as Rhinos and Zebras and animals from South America which included an armadillo named Taco. Did you know that the skin of an armadillo is so tough that even a jaguar cannot bite through it and there are twenty-five species of Armadillo? There are plenty of things that we as a school can do to help conserve animals around the globe including: minimising power usage, use of plastic packaging, litter and non-animal-friendly gardens. We can also either spread the word about endangered animals and their habitats or raise money for this cause. One more thing we can do is to educate and be educated more on the topic of the importance of conservation, what it does, and how it helps the animals. We learnt about the animals at York House and why it is so beneficial to have time around animals and it is also very educational, for example it can help us learn more about the life cycle and there are endless fascinating facts about animals that can help us so much in our own life. They have a session called ‘Donkey Down Time’ where a student who may be struggling gets time with the school’s Donkey and talk to a teacher ease their stress or worries about school or out of school issues.

George: During our visit to York House, the host for the Eco Forum 2022, we had a workshop on Fairtrade, presented by Three Rivers Fair Trade group. Three volunteers directed the session, giving up their own time to educate students and staff from 12 different schools. They talked about the trade of chocolate and how the countries which consumed the most chocolate were first world countries whereas the countries which produced the chocolate weren't as established as the countries which consumed their goods. This is known as the North/South divide. After this discussion, we talked about how a £1 chocolate bar would be divided between the farmers, the cocoa bean buyers, the transporters, factories, shopkeepers and the Government with the farmers getting as little as 7 pence! Due to this injustice in the production of chocolate bars, farmers joined co-ops and joined forces in growing, nurturing and selling the beans for countries to eventually consume. In Ghana, cocoa bean production has halved in the last 5 years. This is due to pests, growing temperatures due to climate change and droughts and lack of water. Fair Trade corporations are encouraging Ghanian farmers to plant avocado trees to evenly spread pests, not destroying either plant.

Grace: In our workshop, fashion and textiles which was led by Ellen Roberts from Three Rivers District included interesting facts like how much water is used to produce clothes and how much impact of clothes on the environment was - an example for this is how much water is needed to make a pair of trousers. After this conversation, we were given a few cards which had different types of clothes on them and we sorted them from lowest to highest amount of water we think was used for them. Did you know that to make one pair of jeans you need 10,000 litres of water? She also talked about fast fashion which is basically turning cheap, trendy clothing into everyday wear.