This week at Darton Academy students have been finding out about COP26 in their geography lessons. We looked at the four goals of the conference, progress made towards these goals by countries in the last two weeks, whether these goals are realistic or not as well as David Attenborough’s speech to the conference which sparked many conversations in classrooms. This prompted some very interesting debates around sustainability and climate change and whether enough is being done to combat the climate crisis.

Students were encouraged to think of ways in which we, as individuals, can be more sustainable too and made their own “Promises to the Planet”. Ideas included turning off lights when leaving a room, reducing the amount of meat we are eating, walking to school more and using less plastic. 

In Earth Club, students debated the best ways for our school to become more sustainable too – the four top ideas were meat free days, recycling in classrooms, “switch off” lessons without the use of technology and planting more trees in the school grounds. As students entered school on Friday morning, they cast their votes for these four ideas they liked and which they thought is the best way to improve sustainability at Darton Academy.  We hope to keep this conversation regarding the climate crisis going throughout the year and we aim to do more themed activities in the future to keep these important discussions alive.