Fight climate change

To start tackling the impacts of climate change, we first need to understand the problem. Use our resources below to guide your research.

Required: Sum up what you’ve learnt about the ocean and climate change in a wall display, play, song, poem, video or leaflet.

Top tip! The posters in your welcome pack could form part of your wall display. Click the links to download more copies of the fight climate change and marine wildlife posters.

No matter where we live, our actions have an impact on the ocean and life within it.

Required: Use the journey mapper template to help your pupils understand their connection to the ocean.

Use these resources to learn more about our ocean:

• Amazing Ocean Fact File
• How do we use the sea? Fact File
• What did the ocean ever do for us? (video)

Use these resources to learn more about climate change and how it impacts the ocean:

• Climate Change Fact File
• The Waste Funnel
• Global warming video
• Ocean acidification video
• Super Seagrass Lesson Plan
• Seagrass Fact File

Use these resources to learn more about Marine Protected Areas and how they help the ocean recover:

• Marine Protected Areas Lesson Plan
• Marine Protected Areas Fact File
• Ocean Superheroes fact sheet

To see the impact of your chosen ocean issue from your classroom, use the resources provided to plan and deliver an investigation with your group.

Required: Complete one or more practical investigations on photosynthesis, ocean acidification or warming temperatures

To measure your school's impact on the ocean, your pupils will carry out surveys and collect data. These could be energy audits, food waste checks or travel surveys, and the data you gather will help you plan your next move in Step 3.

Required: Carry out a survey from the following options:

• Complete personal diaries of everything pupils have done in a day. Review the activities to assess how everyday actions connect to climate change
• Carry out a school energy audit. Calculate how much energy is used and identify areas where consumption could be reduced
• Carry out a school packaging audit. Find out how much waste is produced and classify what could be reduced, reused and recycled
• Carry out a school travel survey and calculate the carbon emissions from everyone’s journeys to and from school
• Review school lunches (packed and school) and calculate the carbon footprint of a day of lunches
• Monitor the food waste created from a week of school lunches

Required: Use one of the campaign planners below to take action in your school.

Reducing consumption and carbon emissions

• Hold a '3R Challenge' to encourage your school community to reduce their consumption, and therefore carbon emissions
• Create a campaign to reduce energy consumption in your school
• Work with your school caterers to reduce the carbon footprint of school lunches, for example by reducing meat, increasing sustainable seafood, or using local suppliers of seasonal produce
• Identify ways to reduce the carbon emissions of travel to and from school and create a campaign for more sustainable travel

Waste reduction

• Eliminate one or more types of waste from your school
• Reduce food waste from school lunches

If you've not yet seen results from your campaign or project, don't worry! It's still a really useful exercise to reflect on what went well and what your group might do differently next time.

Required: Evaluate your campaign or project using our template

Share what you’ve learnt and encourage others to change. Please note that there is no obligation to fundraise for us!

Required: Hold a celebratory event such as a Big Blue Day to share what you've learned with your school, parents/guardians or local community

To help your school continue their ocean-friendly journey, design an Ocean Manifesto with your very own pledges and inspire others to get involved.

Required: Use our template to complete your own Ocean Manifesto

Your Ocean Ambassadors could promote ocean-friendly actions at your school and help make sure your manifesto pledges are upheld

You could create a piece of mega-art or artivism to draw attention to what you’ve learnt about climate change and what people can do about it. You could display your art piece at your event or share it on social media.

Share your work in an article on your school's website, or read our top tips for creating a social media campaign!

Invite local government representatives to your event or into school to talk about what they can do to support your work and help tackle climate change.

You can find your local representative at writetothem.com

You could run an event for parents to present your work and provide ideas for how they can help out at home, for example, how to reduce food waste or energy consumption.

Present your work to the school governors and talk to them about what they can do to help the school be more ocean-friendly

Run an event for the local community with activities like a food fair selling or giving away food with low carbon footprints, a repair café using the expertise from the school community to fix things, a craft fair selling upcycled and recycled items, or a zero-waste summer fair.

Read our top tips for your community event!