Cambridgeshire Schools Climate Conference

COP 27 Conference – hosted by Sawston Village College

12 schools from across the region came together at Sawston Village College to take part in a mock COP27 style eco conference. The eco teams from each school took part including 12 from CVC. There was a very interesting key note talk from Dr Simon Morley from the British Antarctic Survey.

This then led into the main event a mock COP. Each school represented an assigned country and had to make a speech requesting a certain amount of money from a total “budget” of £1 billion to solve climate-related issues within their country. This ranged from flooding defences to funding for solar panels, and every request was expressed articulately from each school. Comberton represented Brazil, with Natasha Audeon (9V) delivering a speech focusing on the Amazon Rainforest and how we would use the £40 million requested to end deforestation and support those whose livelihoods depended on it to greener jobs. After every school had spoken, we had fifteen minutes to decide on who our five votes would go to. There was a lot of negotiation between different schools, with deals and snubs, before we had to settle down and vote. Out of the thirteen schools represented, and twelve possible votes, Comberton got a whopping ten votes, the highest number of everyone by two! It then went to the final round, where every school had to vote yes or no on the three highest-scoring schools hypothetically receiving the money they had asked for. For any money to be given out, it had to be a unanimous vote in favour. Sadly, every school was blocked and no-one got any of the hypothetical money, but it was an incredibly interesting experience and taught everyone involved a huge amount about negotiation, politics and how hard it is to get things done on an international level.  

Freya – year 9

There were then a range of options including tree planting and talks by Natural England and about the Babraham Forest Garden.

Tree planting

At the eco conference a group of us listened to a talk on forest gardens. These are areas of forest which are planted by humans to act like a normal forest. They could contain lots of fruit and berries. The garden which they’d most recently started growing contained apples, nuts, berries and garlic. The ground was designed to be covered in shrubs and bushes. This area will take many years to grow full but in the end will be an area for animals and people to use and enjoy.

Ada – year 8

The last workshop was for the schools to jointly deicde on some shared projects for our schools. There were loads of great ideas and these were then voted on. It was an excellent conference, organised by the County Council and hopefully we can continue to work together as schools on such an important issue as this.

Eco bricks part 2

Eco Bricks

We have been running our eco brick collection project from before Covid, when a bench was produced out of them.

The main issue with the eco bricks is how to connect them together. We have now moved to using cement blocks with eco bricks as the core of them. Cement though has a huge carbon footprint, so seemed against the aim of the project. Fortunately for us there is a local company, that produces a low carbon alternative, who provided us the cement for free.

Cemfree is a totally cement-free alternative to conventional concrete and a ground-breaking milestone in low-carbon concrete technology.

Cemfree – DB Group (dbgholdings.com)

The plan is to make the eco brick blocks into a raised bed to grow herbs in for the food tech department.

Compost project

We are putting together compost bins near the outdoor classroom, behind the cabin. In the long term, we would like this to be for the whole school, including the Buttery and the Dining Room. For now, we would like to start off by trialling this in the food tech classrooms.

Our plan is, ideally, for each of the food tech rooms (T2 and T7) to have food waste bins for all raw fruit and vegetables, which can then be taken to the school compost bins. In order for this to be a sustainable project, it needs to be easy for all of the food tech staff and students to work with.

At this stage we only want to collect raw fruit and vegetables. No dairy / meat etc. Eggshells would be fine, but we want to avoid rats so don’t want to include anything that might attract them. Paper, paper napkins and cardboard could also be put in this bin.

We are currently thinking that we would get a wheelie bin to sit outside of the food tech classrooms, and where food waste could be emptied into at the end of each day.  On a Monday after school or Friday lunchtime, the eco team could then take responsibility for emptying the wheelie bin into the compost bin.

Transform our world summit

The focus of this years youth summit was based around Power. One of the school’s eco team took part talking about what power meant to them.

https://www.transform-our-world.org/events/transform-our-world-youth-summit-2022

CVC Carbon Audit

An audit of the school’s carbon footprint including SCOPE 3 emissions was done by staff and students. The results are summarised below

Area		tonnes CO2e
Energy	Electricity Gas Oil	214 179 220
Utilities	Water Telephone etc	10 8
Waste	Waste transport Waste Disposal	2 15
Food	Food	360
Purchasing	Stationery IT Site	244 158 123
Travel	Coaches Cars Other Staff	128 177 55 126
Total		2 019

The Trust and the school have already put in place lots of energy saving measures, such as LED lighting, solar panels and the ground source heat pump.

A presentation was made to the Trust board, with the following recommendations

Youth Climate Conference reports

Forest of promises

This was about how removing forests will affect us. We need to keep the climate from rising 1.5%more. Changing rooftops to tree gardens. The leaves remove co2. They are homes for lots of creatures. They send chemical messages to each other, this is still to be explored. We need to learn more, we need ideas about what to do not just yell do something. That is useless. What does it mean for you and how could you do form the planet. The school is an important role. It gives us an opportunity to work with others and not on your own. Helps people exchange ideas. Schools can get you to speak to MPs and get noticed by the press. Leaf do something on one side and a promise you will do. Plant more trees. Pick up litter, eat less meat, throw away less. Leaves what you want to happen. Put on fallen branch, make a tree out of these leaves. Million of children are doing this. Boris says to make other world leaders cut carbon emissions.

International Climate Conference

During COP as part of the Connecting Classroom programme, we are organised an online climate conference with the 6 schools involved, 3 in the UK and 3 in Bangladesh. We started by introducing each school:

Coleg Meirion Dwyfor – a sixth form college in Wales; Sutton CofE Primary School – near Ely; Sreepur Govt Pilot High School, Gazipur; Khalishak uri Govt. Primary School, Dhaka; Azim Uddin High School, Kishorega.

Next we split into breakout rooms with students from each school and looked at:-

Discussion 1: How much our country is contributing to climate change and what are the main sources of Greenhouse Gases. What can we do as a country to reduce our climate emissions

Discussion 2: What effects / impacts might we see as a country due to the effects of climate change. What can we do as a country to adapt to climate change

Discussion 3: What can we be doing as individuals about climate change – this could include personal actions, household actions, contacting politicians, student climate strike

World’s largest lesson

Students from Comberton attended remotely the World’s largest lesson which was broadcast live from COP26.

A recording is available here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExapQfulPg&t=826s

Online were students from all over the world – Peru, South Africa, Italy to name but a few.. The lesson consisted of a summary of climate change, the effects that it has, solutions including a look at farming and diets.

This coincided with a focus on climate change in lessons at Comberton on Friday (which had been nominated as the ‘Youth and education day’ at COP), where teachers were encouraged to look at some of the issues and solutions, including watching some documentaries on iplayer: such as – ‘Climate change: Ade on the frontline’ (a documentary than can be recommended) and ‘Shop well for the planet’ (a guide to what you can do in your home to help the planet and your finances).

Mock COP 26

Students from year 12 have organised a mock COP 26. Countries represented by students were Australia, Burkino Faso, China, Germany, Indonesia, Maldives, Norway, Spain, Russia. Sustainable energy and transport were discussed.

Students representing Burkino Faso and Norway

Chairing mock COP

Youth Climate Summit

Students from the Eco Team have been watching parts of the youth climate summit, which has coincided with COP 26. Year 7 have watched sessions on a climate ‘Dragon’s den’, WWF ‘forest of promises’ and ‘A call to Action’. Year 8 watched a session on digital story telling and year 10 a session on ‘Climate Anxiety’.

Videos are still available to watch on

Transform Our World: bringing environmental action into the classroom with quality-rated resources (transform-our-world.org)

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