- School homepage
- Introduction
- Using the Carbon Detectives' Kit
- How to register
- Misson control
- Supporting the Carbon Detectives Team
- Curriculum links - Key Stage 2
- Curriculum links - Key Stage 3
- Rethinking the school
- Energy and water
- Food and drink
- Waste and recycling
- Travel and traffic
- Purchasing
- Buildings and grounds
- Staff training pack
Climate change
The Carbon Detectives’ Kit has been designed to help pupils understand some of the key issues related to climate change. The kit enables pupils to explore what can be done at an individual and school level to prevent the predicted significant impacts of rising temperatures.
Climate change is the biggest single issue facing us today, outweighing any environmental crisis faced by humans in the past. It threatens the survival of people on the planet. Climate change scientists are in agreement that global temperature is increasing and human activity is pushing it to dangerous levels. If we are to avoid a temperature rise of more than two degrees by 2050, we need to cut carbon emissions by 50-80 per cent. Politicians and businesses are slowly catching on to the need for urgent action, but to avert potentially disastrous change to our global climate will require a huge shift in thinking.
In preventing serious climate change we face a contradiction. How do we reduce CO2 emissions whilst maintaining a high quality of life for all? To achieve this, society needs to rethink solutions to climate change problems. Within this sits the extraordinary potential that schools have to be a part of this change – and indeed help to shape the future in exciting and innovative ways.
The Carbon Detectives’ Kit
The Carbon Detectives’ Kit supports schools in leading the change to a low carbon future. It does this by:
- Helping schools to explore and measure their own CO2 emissions, identify where the biggest impacts are and plan for improvements.
- Providing learning opportunities that support more systemic thinking about climate change and explore the skills needed for effective action, both within and outside the school.
- Giving a big picture view of climate change, moving the emphasis in an empowering way from the individual to the whole school community and beyond.
- Providing an environment where young people can not only learn but also participate in meaningful action.
- Enabling schools to lead by example.
In short, used to its fullest potential, the Carbon Detectives’ Kit offers an access point to real and long term change.
The website and carbon footprint calculator start the journey. The results lead to new questions and raised aspirations. The greatest potential can be realised through a whole school approach. When an entire school endorses and embodies such change, the benefits are enormously magnified. A school in which the values of sustainability are embedded can offer young people a learning environment full of exciting advantages and opportunities.