Quick Links
- Low Carbon Day - The Vision
- How can I get my school involved?
- Schools - register
- Parents - invite your school to join in
- What sort of pledges can children make?
- What sort of pledges can parents make?
- What sort of things will children learn about?
- Lesson Plans
- Download sample Low Carbon Day letter to parents
Low Carbon Day - The Vision
Registration
The deadline for registering for Low Carbon Day has now passed.
What sort of pledges can children make?
Here are some ideas of how children might do something positive for the environment:
- Ride a bike or walk instead of going by car
- Turn the lights off when you leave the room
- Cut your TV watching. Don't leave the TV on standby – turn it off at the wall.
- Take a shower instead of a bath – it uses less hot water as long as you keep it short.
- Recycle as much as possible. Recycle cans, bottles, plastic bags, and newspapers. When you recycle, you send less rubbish to the landfill and you help save natural resources, like trees, oil, and elements such as aluminium.
- Don't waste food.
- Eat less beef and dairy products. Cows produce methane which is one of the most damaging greenhouse gases.
- Plant trees. Planting trees is fun and a great way to reduce greenhouse gases. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air.
- When You Buy, Buy Cool Stuff. Buy recycled products which don't use 'new' resources and don't require so much energy to make. Buy energy efficient electrical goods.
What sort of pledges can parents make?
Here are some ideas. Wherever there is a calculator sign 
, you can calculate the carbon emissions saved using our carbon calculator.
It's very instructive to calculate your carbon footprint before deciding what to cut. Take me to the Carbon Footprint Calculator.
- Don't fly unless you really have to for 12 months.
- Go to school by bus, share a car or walk.
- Walk/ cycle journeys of less than 2 miles.
- Don't use the car for one day a week for three months.
- Do you really need a second or even a third car?
- Drive smarter - pump up your tyres and keep the RPM low.
- Switch your vehicle to LPG.
- Sort out your insulation and switch to low energy light bulbs.
- Turn the thermostat down, turn the air con off.
- Turn off the lights when not in use and avoid using standby on the TV or the computer.
- Invest in energy efficient appliances (highest energy rating).
- Switch to a green energy tariff.
- Generate your own renewable energy install solar or wind or geothermal.
- Invest in a smart meter. Knowledge is power.
- Don't buy things that you don't need - resist all those gadgets, toys, t-shirts and other junk that gets used for a day and then clutters up the place for years...
- Don't waste food. Eat seasonal locally sourced food where possible.
- Recycle and compost anything that can be composted.
When you've done everything you can you can still offset your emissions - follow this link for more information.
Your school may also choose to operate its own 'Offsetting programme' where parents can offset some or all of their carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy projects in the school. As a guide at the time of writing the 'price of carbon' is around 14 Euros per tonne. You can see an up to date price on http://www.pointcarbon.com/.
What sort of things will children learn about?
The subject of climate change can be approached through many discipline including science, maths, geography, economics and philosophy.
Some examples:
Calculating your own carbon footprint
Understanding the greenhouse effect
The Carbon Cycle
Population growth
Economics and emissions
Renewable energy - solar power, wind power, hydro-electric power
Impacts of climate change on developing nations
Impacts on ecosystems
The nuclear debate
Lesson Plans
Click here to see the lesson plans we have prepared.
Download sample Low Carbon Day letter to parents
Here you can download a letter to send to parents about your participation in Low Carbon Day. The sample letter is available in Word or PDF format. Right click on one of the links and select 'Save target as...' to save the file onto your computer.
