Eco Schools Activities for Outdoor Classrooms

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We have developed some creative activities for outdoor classrooms which include features to promote a lot of the core themes of the Eco Schools programme – namely renewable energy, bio-diversity, growing and healthy living. First of all though, you need access to the following essential ingredients:

* Outdoor classroom or shelter – preferably with a living sedum roof and an internal mini dipping pond

* Dynamo electric pedal bikes which produce electricity when pedalled

* Mini wind turbine/solar panel and energy monitoring board with power sockets

* Guttering and water butt for rainwater harvesting

* Planters

So now we have an outdoor classroom which is actually a learning resource too. For bio-diversity, the children can see how the sedum on the roof changes colour and texture and how it attracts wildlife. And in no time at all, the mini dipping pond will be thriving with life and providing a natural habitat for all sorts of creatures. For renewable energy, children can pedal on the special dynamo electric pedal bikes to create power which can then be used for all kinds of creative outdoor learning exercises; they can monitor the energy created by the wind turbine or solar panel and then use this to power up laptops, tablets etc. And they can plant and grow their own food which is turn is fed and watered by natural rainwater.

And this happens all year round as well!

For further information as to how your school can benefit from the above, please contact Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email simon@hideouthouse.com

 or visit eco school activities

The Green Roomoption

Don’t Build The Ark Just Yet!

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With all of this recent bad weather and heavy flooding we have been experiencing of late, it was sort of inevitable that everybody would start blaming everyone else and that the perennial issue of climate change would yet again come to the fore of public discussion and debate.

I am no scientist by any means and sometimes it is hard to know what to believe when confronted with so much conflicting information – but I do know this for sure and that is that we have been experiencing some pretty weird but consisent weather patterns these last ten years and surely we cannot just keep blaming the good old British climate. We have obviously upset Mother Nature and she is telling us loud and clear that she is not very happy.

We do need therefore to start to make some fundamental changes to the way we treat this planet but I totally appreciate that this will be extremely difficult to get everyone to agree upon exactly what, when and how. But I believe that a very good place to start is to introduce today’s children to eco schools education so that eco awareness and social responsibility becomes absolutely second nature to them. If we can encourage this more and more in schools, then hopefully we can secure some sort of a better future where they will not have to entertain the prospect of ducks swimming around their front living room each winter!

The Eco Schools programme is doing a great job to promote their green agenda within the educational community and it is pleasing to see more and more schools joining each year.

And that is why everything we sell to schools at the Hideout House Company is designed to foster eco awareness and to promote an educational green engagement. But we haven’t designed and built an ark just yet!!

For more information, please contact Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email simon@hideouthouse.com

The Hideout House Company Ltd   www.hideouthouse.com