We visited Forest Green Rovers stadium to work with their community outreach team and deliver an afternoon of student workshops.
FGR Community works with schools, community organisations, and sports clubs in Gloucestershire and the surrounding area, using football to educate, motivate and inspire. They run a football holiday sessions that combines physical activities, with workshops on the environment. One of our key missions is to educate the next generation about recycling and single-use plastics. Therefore, when we were asked to collaborate for another event we were delighted to be involved.
20 children joined us for a talk about why it is important to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We then worked together to complete our decomposition timeline.
Students had to work in teams to try and work out how long household items take to break down when not recycled. They couldn’t believe how long it took things to breakdown. A water bottle for example, may only be used for an hour before being discarded, where it then can last for 450 years.
After our timeline activity, students could then pick from our two football-inspired sustainability worksheets. They could either design a football made from recycled materials, or design a football boot to raise awareness for a eco-mission of their choosing. Some chose anti-litter messages, some focused on climate change, some on forest fires, while others focused on raising awareness about ocean plastic.
We were blown away by the creativity and ingenuity displayed on both worksheets. Once the worksheets were complete, we chatted to the children as they explained their ideas. The winning design was a pink boot raising awareness about recycling. They proposed that the boots be made from recycled football boots and that the laces be made from sustainable materials such as bamboo.
Thank you so much to FGR Community for allowing us to come and talk about single-use plastics and ocean pollution. Thank you also to the students who listened to our talk and participated in our workshops!
If you would like to work with us, please contact hello@lifesabeach.org to learn more.
You can learn more about Forest Green Rovers Community here.
