Foundation Stage curriculum: Environment project - Go green

Children at Elmscot Day Nursery, Altrincham, now have a greaterunderstanding of a range of basic 'green' issues after our environmentweek.

Environmental issues are close to many of the staff members' hearts andwe are conscious of the impact our nursery has on the environment. Wehave reduced our carbon footprint by changing food suppliers and now usea local butcher and vegetable supplier, although we are currentlystruggling to find a recycling collection that does not incur a heftycost.

Discussing matters such as these made us aware of the importance ofeducating children in environmental issues at an early age. A talentedstaff member designed two environmental hero characters, RecyclingRachel and Energy Ed, to get some basic concepts across to ourpre-schoolers. As part of our awareness week we introduced the childrento the characters and discussed things that we can all do to lessendamage to the environment, such as not leaving the television onstandby, turning off lights when they're not needed, not leaving tapsdripping and not throwing away paper and other resources that can bereused. The children are now very familiar with the characters becausethey appear all around the nursery as prompts, such as by the bins,light switches and sinks.