Schools, The Environment Crisis & The Hideout House Company
It is ten years now since I set up the Hideout House Company to sell a new and unique range of playground equipment and outdoor classrooms/buildings to schools. The main emphasis then – as it is now – was on developing products which in some way could promote eco educational learning as well as being both practical and fun. I had already started going down this line with my previous company where I pioneered the concept of an eco lodge outdoor classroom – a range of buildings where every facet of their design and manufacturing was with sustainability in mind but more importantly, these elements children could actually learn from so it therefore became both a functional and didactic product combined into one. For example, children could see how the sedum on the roof changes colour with the seasons and how it attracts wildlife and promotes bio-diversity, they could plant and grow their own food in the planters and mini greenhouses provided, they could harvest rainwater in the water butts which also incorporates a basic water irrigation system (to feed the planters)and they could monitor the energy created by the roof mounted wind turbine and solar panel. Children and students will therefore not just be told about sustainable development because they will actually be living and working within it the whole time.
Ten years on, we as a company are still promoting the environmental cause with our eco friendly range of products but this whole agenda has now just become ever more real and important. The media is currently reporting every single day on the catastrophic realities of climate change around the world and why we, as the human race, need to act now to avoid disaster on a scale that we have never seen before and from which there is no return.
Schools can obviously play their part – and they already very much do so via the excellent Eco Schools programme – in educating children about environmental issues and how we can all behave more responsibly in the crucial years to come. It almost has to be at a point that children don’t have to learn this but instead it just comes to them as second nature. Greta Thunberg has obviously been a major inspiration in this respect by demonstrating what “young people power” can do on a global scale.
We are undoubtedly running out of time and we must now all do our part to make sure that this planet is here for future generations. We at the Hideout House Company are therefore still developing new products the whole time which very much have the environment in mind – these products include eco classrooms, outdoor classrooms, playground products made out of recycled plastic and growing gardens.
Schools must adapt techniques and environmental policies to help lead the transition to a low carbon economy and we very much intend to be at the forefront of this.
For more information on the Hideout House Company, please visit www.hideouthouse.com or contact us on 01832 275902 and email: info@hideouthouse.com
