Schools, Climate Change & Greta Thunberg

It has been so heartening to witness the recent events of young people – aka school children – demonstrating so vociferously against the devastations of climate change and global warming. From the inspiring speeches of the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg to the recent student marches in and around all major cities of the world, the world has finally found a unified voice and that voice is youth. I do believe that in the years to come, history will judge the day when a teenage girl in Scandinavia decided to bunk off school and protest about the environment as one of the major turning points in finally getting the leaders of the world to sit up, listen and act.

And young people have every right to be angry or feel frustrated at world leaders and politicians as they are the ones who are going to inherit and deal with the major problems that climate change will bring. And whatever you believe, it surely has to be obvious to everyone that something is quite not right with the planet and that is what is happening right now today is just the start.

There are no quick fixes that is for sure but I have always believed that if the younger generation of today are aware of the major issues facing the planet (and they obviously are in light of the recent worldwide protests) and can act in a more respectful way that is almost second nature to them, then we are perhaps in with a fighting chance. And that all starts with education.

There is already a very good international programme that runs within educational establishments called Eco Schools (it currently engages 19.5 million children across 67 countries) which essentially promotes and informs on issues such as recycling, bio-diversity, energy, healthy living, transport and waste.

So what have we done as the Hideout House Company to promote the environmental cause? Well, quite a lot actually. We have now fully developed our range of playground products which are manufactured out of recycled plastic as opposed to the more traditional timber. This material is 100% recycled from plastic cartons so has very good eco credentials. This range now takes in trim trails, playboats, planters, tables, mud kitchens and play towers.

And our very own eco hub is proving to be very popular too. This includes a shelter (available in different shapes and sizes) with a grass living roof, a water butt and roof guttering system (for rainwater harvesting) and our educational renewable energy equipment. This particular feature was designed and developed in house and includes a solar panel and mini wind turbine which is mounted on the roof; this in turn feeds down into a monitoring control panel which is secured on a wall within the shelter where a battery stores the energy created by the turbine and solar panel. This is then turned into usable electricity by way of an inverter so that the children can plug in their mobiles, laptops, tablets etc into the two outdoor sockets on the board. We feel that there is no better way to teach children about the creation of renewable energy – “green power” at their fingertips!

We have also created outdoor classrooms which are pedal powered i.e. children pedalling on specially adapted dynamo bikes to create enough electricity to charge sound systems, lights and portable cinemas. And it has another plus side too in that it burns off the calories as the children know that if they stop pedalling, so does the power.

For more information on our range of eco friendly products for schools, please given us a call on 01832 275902 or visit wwww.hideouthouse.com