“By empowering children to engage with the natural world, we lay the foundation for a sustainable future” – Carley Sefton, CEO of Learning through Landscapes
As a Nursery, we are very passionate about fostering an environmentally friendly approach to lay the foundations for a more sustainable future for our children.
In October, we acknowledged Recycling Week 2024 however, we strive to reduce our environmental impact every day, through embedded sustainable practices. These include, but are not limited to:
- In an effort to reduce one-use plastic waste, we have chosen to discontinue the use of nappy sacks in the Nursery. Every child is provided with a reusable wet bag when beginning their Shotley Bridge Nursery School journey.
- Our children are learning about composting by disposing of fruit and vegetable peels in our compost bin and observing the changes as the food items break down, with the end goal of using the compost for future planting opportunities.
- We have a water butt in our outdoor area and this water is recycled for use in watering our fruit, vegetable and flower plants, and in play opportunities.
- We utilise a wide array of found and recycled materials to facilitate creativity. We find value in items such as cardboard boxes, kitchen roll tubes, yoghurt pots and the like. The magic is found in the countless learning opportunities these materials provide, as children ascribe meaning and use them during open-ended play, offering us a true insight into their interests and thinking skills.
- Within our continuous provision, we have repurposed many items to create valuable learning opportunities. For example; one of our planters is an old bath, we facilitate physical challenge outdoors through use of tractor and car tyres, and our mud kitchen is built around a real, disused oven. These are just a few examples of items that provide great benefit to our children’s learning, but could easily have gone unused and ended up in landfill.
To support our sustainability efforts, we are working with our SBNS friends and families on a whole nursery project. We are working together to create Eco-Bricks, which are blocks made from compacted, non-recyclable plastic waste.
Plastic poses a significant threat to our planet, but through Eco-Bricks, we can repurpose this material for eco-friendly solutions. Eco-Bricks are plastic bottles filled with used plastic, creating reusable building blocks that help sequester plastic.
By making Eco-Bricks, we can prevent plastic pollution and avoid the negative consequences of industrial processing. Furthermore, Eco-Bricks can be used locally to construct various environmentally friendly structures. All contributions of Eco-Bricks from the wider community would be gratefully received.
Mrs Barclay recently liaised with the local council to source litter-picking resources and our Rivers and Bridges children have been working hard to remove rubbish from the paths and fields in the area. The children were educated in the safe disposal of rubbish and brought bin bags full of items that had been irresponsibly discarded back to the Nursery to correctly dispose of.
The children learnt about where each type of waste goes and how recyclable materials such as plastic bottles and cardboard tubes can be used again, but only if they are put into the correct bin.
Evidence suggests that humans are born with an emotional affiliation to the natural world, known as Biophilia. If this instinct is nurtured from a young age by allowing children to connect with nature, they are more likely to engage in sustainable behaviours in later life.
We are committed to teaching our children about sustainable practices – our goal is to instil positive attitudes and values towards sustainability by exploring solutions to environmental issues, gaining an understanding of the world, and observing adults practising sustainability.
To foster this connection with the natural world, we engage in regular ‘Nature walks’ in which the children observe seasonal changes, learn about birds and wildlife, and explore their curiosities surrounding these with magnifying glasses and binoculars.
