Over a period of four years Green Up Your Act worked with the Low Carbon Trust organising school visits, providing environmental sessions and tours of the award winning Brighton Earthship. This workshop explores the design of the Earthship building and how it contributes to mitigating climate change by embracing sustainable design principles and reducing their environmental impact.

The Earthship reduces waste by making use of materials like old tyres, glass bottles, and cans in their construction. This lowers the demand for new materials and reduces the carbon footprint associated with manufacturing and transportation. In addition to recycled materials, local, natural resources such as earth, clay, and timber are used to minimise the environmental impact of resource extraction. The building relies on renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines for electricity. This eliminates the need for grid electricity from fossil fuels, cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.

Harvested rainwater is used throughout the building including in the greenhouse, where residents can grow their own food year-round. This reduces the carbon footprint associated with food transportation, promotes local, organic food production.

Energy efficiency is achieved through being designed to maximise solar gain in the winter and minimise it in the summer. They use natural heating and cooling methods, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and lowering carbon emissions.

After exploring these features in more detail through using an inspiring interactive presentation and video clips, pupils will be given the opportunity to create a unique recycled case study book. Pupils will select images of the building to label in their case study book, highlighting inspiring technology or features. The book can then be used for documenting the many curriculum subjects coved in this exciting and informative workshop.

In this workshop we explore a number of topics and themes:

This workshop lasts from 45 minutes to an hour with up to 35 / 70 pupils in each session. At the end of the session everyone will take a notebook home to enjoy.

Small steps can add up to big changes. So let’s all learn to reduce our ecological footprint and help maximise our earth’s precious resources.

During this workshop we discuss a range of green issues in the home, at school, and in a global context. With the aid of an interactive presentation, we visit an award-winning building, the Earthship, which is powered by renewable energy and is built from recycled materials.

After exploring some of the key issues involved, we examine a range of a diverse range of recycled and up-cycled objects and materials from around the world. We then get hands on and make a visually unique up-cycled notebook from old maps paper and card.

This workshop is also available as an online option. Please get in touch for further details.

In this workshop we explore a number of topics and themes:

This workshop lasts from 45 minutes to an hour with up to 35 / 70 pupils in each session. At the end of the session everyone will take a notebook home to enjoy.

Small steps can add up to big changes. So let’s all learn to reduce our ecological footprint and help maximise our earth’s precious resources.

We open up a dialogue with the pupils to raise awareness on green issues coming up every day at home, in their school and out in the wider world. We will look at a variety of colourful up–cycled objects made from different materials followed by a Q&A session.

Making use of redundant materials challenges us to create new and useful objects from what we formerly regarded as rubbish. Our up-cycling workshop uses a Tetra Pac juice carton to created a wallet to demonstrate the transformation of an everyday item. This example shows how discarded cardboard, aluminium and plastic can be used again to create a new object which is both durable and hard wearing. By the end of the session the pupils have learnt that we can all take part in making our world a cleaner and greener place to live.

This workshop is also available as an online option. Please get in touch for further details.

In this workshop we explore a number of topics and themes:

This workshop lasts from 30 minutes to an hour with up to 35 / 70 pupils in each session. 

The technological revolution has changed how we live and communicate, but at the same time has created new challenges environmentally. This workshop explores the mounting problem of electronic waste. When electronic devices are disposed of, the non-biodegradable components that make up our phones, fridges, televisions, hairdryers and laptops, leave a toxic footprint and go on to accumulate in the environment, soil, air, water and living things. Currently only 13% of our electronic waste is being recycled.

In this workshop participants use a redundant retro disket and a wide range of recycled papers to make an Eco Ideas Booklet for their own personal projects. During the session students are free to select from materials provided to craft the pages of a booklet unique to them, which expresses their personal inspirations and influences. The potential pages inside range from plain, coloured, graphic, textured material pieces, photos and fold outs which each maker selects to reflect their own design ideas. The finished booklet can be used as a diary, travel journal, sketch book or for capturing other moments of creativity and inventiveness.

By making the Eco Ideas Booklet pupils will be inspired to think about using refurbished devices and know at the end of the technology’s useful life, they can donate or recycle their electronics, rather than seeing them as disposable. To bring the subject to life in the classroom, we will examine a range of expired storage formats, including tapes, mini disks, old mobile phones and VHS tapes.

This workshop is also available as an online option. Please get in touch for further details.

In this workshop we explore a number of topics and themes:

This workshop lasts from 30 minutes to an hour with up to 35 pupils in each class. At the end of the session everyone will take an Eco Ideas Booklet home to enjoy.

This workshop lasts from 30 minutes to an hour with up to 35 / 70 pupils in each session. 

Thriving on constant change, fast fashion instills a notion that clothes should be cheap and the only way to make this happen is to have the fabric and garments made in countries where wages and regulations can be kept to a minimum.

Fast fashion has caused a dramatic increase in the environmental damage caused by the textile industry during the recent past. This problem will certainly continue into the future unless awareness is raised among consumers with young people being one of the target groups of the fashion industry.

Pupils are encouraged to bring in an old or unloved T-shirt which then can be up-cycled into a beach bag. Spare T-shirts will be brought in on the day for those who forget or can’t find one to up-cycle.

Recycling and Up-Cycling Workshops

In this workshop we explore a number of topics and themes:

This workshop lasts 60 minutes with up to 35 pupils in each class.