UCL Roots & Shoots Team's First Workshops - Mission Update!

On February 1st, 2010, UCL Roots & Shoots Team presented their first workshops to St Michael's CofE School, Camden. Three volunteers worked with Year One and Year Three.Year One first learned which animals live in the cold, how animals adapt to cold weather and the ways we can help local wildlife survive the winter. Suddenly a distress call from the future told the children that the world could suffer a devastating Ice Age if we continued to use up so much energy! We imagined how animals in London might cope with the big freeze (growing big, fluffy, snow-camouflaged coats, storing food, hibernating) and we talked about the ways in which we use energy at home and in the classroom. To help the people of the future and prevent a devastating Ice Age, Year One came up with over 20 different ways they could save energy and each child made their own energy-saving pledge.Year Three learned about the importance of water.  Through a class competition we found out that the most water-wasteful household activity was not bathing, showering, washing or drinking, but.....flushing the toilet!   We heard from a possible future world, in which there was no water and we tried to imagine a life without washing, drinking or growing plants.  The Year Three students were not keen on a future without water and came up with some inventive ways of saving water (including washing once a week and watering the plants with your bath water!)  Year Three made water-saving pledges which they wrote on leaves and stuck to a Roots & Shoots Pledge Tree.