BiOrbic has developed a new ‘sustainability cafe’ that can be taken into primary schools to inspire young children with ideas for how they can be sustainable.

The cafe has five stations:

• Slow fashion – talking about natural vs synthetic fabrics and how we can reduce clothes consumption
• Food waste – exploring the issues caused when we waste food and how to avoid it
• Recycling – looking at the long degradation times for various waste types and how to recycle them properly
• Composting – how to create compost at home to recycle your food waste and provide compost for the garden
• Grow your own food – how to grow herbs and small vegetables at home with only a windowsill

Each station takes about 10 minutes to run the activity with 6 students. After each 10 minutes, the students rotate to the next station, until each group has visited them all. This creates an exciting, fast-paced session that keeps young children engaged for the full hour.

The centre has now delivered this activity at two schools, Springdale National Primary School and Wicklow Montessori Primary & Pre-School, reaching over 150 students! Many thanks to the following BiOrbic members and colleagues for getting involved:

Hannah Gould, Patricie Niemcová, Carina Hof, Céline Erkey, Zoe Rush, Raphaël Abolivier, Christine Shortt, Zoe Beato and Cormac Murphy.

Thank you to Alana McGuirk of Springdale and Melanie Shortt of Wicklow Montessori for hosting us! If you are interested in hosting a sustainability cafe at your school please get in touch with amanda.mathieson@biorbic.com.