Heart for the Earth
The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) and Church of England General Synod (February 2020) stimulated heartfelt discussions upon climate change. Many highlighted the current climate emergency and the factors which had contributed to it, and the subsequent expression for the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and live more sustainably. A number of agreements and plans were made with a vision of a more sustainable future, one which sees the flourishing of the planet and all life upon it. It is this vision which is animating much discussion and action, not least amongst children and young people. Climate change is a key moral and spiritual issue of our time. In responding to this, the Diocesan Board of Education wishes to support diocesan schools’ thinking around climate change and carbon neutral and have launched a two-year project called 'Heart for the Earth'.
head heart and hand.docxHow we think (head), connect (hearts) and act (hands) towards the earth is vital in ensuring the flourishing of all creation, including humanity. Our curriculum offer here at St.Michael's aims to attend to all three aspects to enable our children and adults to respond in an informed and considered manner to climate change. Bringing together all three aspects form the basis of a ‘pedagogy of hope and action’ throughout the curriculum where pupils are empowered to act as advocates for the planet. Indeed, focussing on hope alongside meaningful and achievable actions (hands) can help alleviate the climate anxiety and despair that exists around us.
As we continue to engage with the Heart for the Earth resources and look at new ways to embrace our vision of being 'effective global citizens' we will use this page of our website to share our journey with you.
Reflection time: Exploring this at home together
HftE-Examen.pdfLitter Picking Club
The children at St.Michaels have always been passionate about making a difference. Following work undertaken on global warming and environmental care last academic year, some of the children had an idea to establish a litter picking club. Donations from the PTA helped to purchase the equipment and the club has finally got up and running. This week, the children began the task of clearing the litter from Apton Road and collected three whole bags of rubbish, especially lots of bottles and cans. Members of the public who met the group thank them for making a difference to the local community. The children cannot wait to get out and continue their work. Headteacher, Rachel Griffiths, said of the group, “we are immensely proud of our students. Their passion for making a difference in the world shines through and they are always thinking of new things to do. It is a privilege to listen to their ideas and bring them to life. They truly are our future.”
Year 1 - Exploring the school environment
Electricity
· What would a world without electricity be like?
Did you know.......?
1 Only 5% of the power drawn by a phone charger is used to charge the phone – so remember to turn it off when you are done!
2 A typical microwave uses more electricity to keep its digital clock on standby than it does heating food.
3 Renewable energy creates three times more jobs than the fossil fuel industry.
4 In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power electronics is consumed while the products are turned off (on standby). Each TV or computer left on standby is estimated to cost you 2p per hour
5 If everyone boiled only the water they needed every time they used the kettle, we could save enough electricity in a year to power the UK’s street lights for nearly 7 months.
6 Turning the thermostat down just 1°C saves 8% in heating costs.
7 A fridge freezer can account for up to 5% of a household’s annual electricity bill. Defrosting it regularly could save you quite a bit of money.
8 Laptops use up to 85% less electricity than desktop PCs.
9 Insulating your hot water cylinder could save you approximately £150 a year. If your tank is already lined with factory foam, savings could amount to £20-30 a year.
10 Installing external wall insulation can prevent up to 40% of heat loss from your home.
11 A new gas boiler is normally about 25% more efficient than a 20 year-old boiler. You could save up to £270 a year on bills by replacing it.
12 Your radiator also emits heat out of the side facing the wall. If your walls are un-insulated, this can leak straight through to outside. Stick radiator reflectors behind them to save yourself money and keep your house warm.
13 Washing clothes at 40°c uses a third less energy than a 60°c cycle.
14 Turning your thermostat down one degree can save nearly £100 per year.
15 Up to 4% of household heat can be lost through an uninsulated chimney.
Water
‘Only 1% of the water on this planet is usable’
How important do you think this fact is for how wisely we use water? I wonder how this might inspire your actions?
Questions to think about at home:
Water is so amazing – we need it to live clean and healthy lives.
Do you think it is important to use water wisely? Why?
Water treatment plants use a large amount of energy to ensure our water is safe and clean to re-use. How could we save water so that less energy is used? (The average British person uses 150 litres a day!)
Do you think we need to be more grateful for the water in our lives and around us? Why?
A growing Christian view is that we live as part of a ‘community of creation’. How would wise use of water help all life on the Earth to flourish?
Is there something we could place around the house to help remind us to be wise, grateful users of water? Perhaps a picture or message?
Ecology
Did you know: the world contains around
309,000 types of plants
73,300 types of trees
New, undocumented plants are still regularly discovered! Each of them are amazing and fascinating in their own way, but what is incredible is the part they play within eco-systems.
Here are some examples of this eco-system in action:
o Pollen – a food source for bees
o Flowers – eaten by squirrels
o Acorns – food for badgers, deer, wood mice and woodpeckers
o Nests for many birds such as blue tits and wood warblers
o Bats, spiders and moths live in the trunk of oak trees
o On the ground, stag beetles and millipedes feed on rotting leaves
The oak tree is a great example of an eco-system at work – each organism depends on and requires each other; each has an important part to play.
Doc2.docx
The Sun
Fun Facts About The Sun
1. Ever wondered, “How big is the sun?” Well, that warm, bright beam of light in the sky is a whopping 865,370 miles in diameter.
2. The sun is so big that more than a million Earths could fit inside it. Woah!
3. The sun’s surface, the photosphere, is blistering at 9,932 degrees Fahrenheit. That makes a hot summer sound not so bad!
4. Did you know that the sun is not a planet? It is actually a star and the only one in our solar system.
5. Without the heat and light from the sun, humans would not be able to live on Earth.
6. Although the sun looks like a giant orb from Earth, it is still around 94.5 million miles away! That is 400 times farther than the distance between the moon and the Earth.
7. The sun is around 4.5 billion years old. It was made when a spinning nebula of gas and dust collapsed, forming a disk shape.
8. Even though the sun is very old, it is roughly only halfway through its life cycle! The sun is currently in a phase called “yellow dwarf,” meaning it is a medium-sized star. It will take another 5 billion years for the sun to become a big, cool star called a “red giant.” Then, at the end of its lifestyle (another few billion years!), it will shrink to become a small “white dwarf” star.
9. The sun is mainly made up of hydrogen and helium, making it a steamy ball of plasma instead of a solid mass.
10. We know that it helps warm our day, but just how hot is the sun? The sun’s core is around 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, meaning no life force could ever survive on the sun. Yikes!
11. The sun’s gravity is so fierce that it holds the entire solar system together, and everything revolves around it — the planets, comets, asteroids and pieces of space debris.
12. The sun emits a constant stream of particles called the solar wind. When the solar wind collides with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen from the Earth’s atmosphere, it can cause beautiful flashes of colorful light in the night sky, known as auroras.
18. Ever noticed grey, reflective rectangles on some roofs? These are called solar panels! Solar panels harness energy from the sun to generate electricity for homes. Almost four percent of U.S. single-family homes generated electricity from solar panels in 2020.
19. The sun’s mass accounts for about 99.86 percent of the solar system’s total mass.
20. Teaching sun safety to kids is incredibly important! Overexposure to the sun can cause severe skin damage.
21. Did you know? The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays are a source of Vitamin D, which is crucial for humans. Vitamin D helps keep bones healthy and prevent diseases that make bones weak, such as rickets!
21. As the sun generates more helium, it becomes hotter and brighter. This is a process that has happened over billions of years!
23. The sun has been a symbol in many cultures, religions and mythologies worldwide. For example, the Ancient Egyptians worshipped a sun God, Ra.
24. You should never look directly at the sun! The sun emits ultraviolet (UV) rays that can cause a sunburn on the corneas of your eyes.
25. As Earth orbits the sun, it rotates along an oval-shaped path rather than a perfect circle. That means the distance between the Earth and the sun changes throughout the year.
The problem is... over the last two hundred years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activity. This means that less heat from the sun is escaping into space; the Earth therefore gets warmer.
It’s a bit like a giant blanket or duvet. As humans have not been so careful in the way they live, work and treat the world, the ‘atmospheric duvet’ is getting thicker and keeping the heat in.
The average global temperature has increased by 1°C since 1880. The planet is getting warmer and warmer at a faster pace.
There are things we can to reduce our carbon footprint to help slow down this damage:
Birds
Did you know?
o There are over 10,000 different species of bird
o Some birds, like parrots, can mimic what people say
o Hummingbirds can fly backwards
o There is one poisonous bird in the world – the Hooded Pitohui of Papua New Guinea
o Some woodpeckers can peck 20 times a second (can you do something 20 times a second?!)
o Homing pigeons can find their way back to a location from over 1000 miles away. They have been used by humans as far back as the Ancient Egyptians to deliver messages.
Birds are amazing! Yet birds face many threats now, including the loss of safe places to nest, disappearing food sources, and the climate crisis. As a school, we will be looking at ways in which we can support bird wildlife both within our own environment and the wider community.