This Tuesday ten lucky year 8 students from saltash.net travelled with myself and our Headteacher Isobel Bryce, to Home Park for the launch of the COOL EARTH –COOL SCHOOL initiative.
If you have read my blogs on Peru (Pisco Sours, Ponchos & Panpipes) you will already know that Cool Earth is a Cornish based charity committed to saving the world’s rainforests and reducing carbon emissions. Our school as part of the project is the first school in the world to become involved in this project which has been designed to encourage schools to work with local businesses to raise money which can be used to support the indigenous peoples of the rainforest and help prevent deforestation. As a piece of rainforest, roughly the size of a football pitch, is destroyed in the world very second, it was thought appropriate that saltash.net should link up with Plymouth Argyle and ask the team to sponsor the scheme.
Our visit to Argyle’s ground included a training session with the players and a tour around the stadium. We had a fantastic time, I found myself very busy doing interviews for various press, one minute I was doing a radio interview the next it was for one of the local newspapers. As well as enjoying themselves, the students also took on board the seriousness of what the initiative is all about. The students already have lots of plans about how they can encourage more people to become involved in the scheme and help to raise more money.
You can read more about the Cool School programme it has gone live this week. Please visit http://www.coolearth.org/365/category/teachers-168.html for more information how you and your school can take part. There are lots of competitions and resources available too. Also if you want to have a laugh I have my own page on there with some videos and pictures, you may particularly like to see the video of me talking about making the traditional Ashaninkan beer made from spit and the manioc root called Masato. http://www.coolearth.org/379/cool-earth-schools-zone-36/teachers-168/dan-roberts-teacher-uk-896.html
Check out the article below taken from the local newspaper below or listen to the broadcast on Radio Cornwall:
Plymouth Argyle is living up to its Green Army name as the team aiming to save an endangered rainforest in Peru.
Argyle has teamed up with Saltash.net community school and Cornish charity Cool Earth to take on the task. Argyle is protecting an area of rainforest the size of a football pitch, representing the amount of rainforest destroyed every second. A Plymouth Argyle spokesman said: “Taking part in The Cool School initiative means we’re being climate responsible and helping local children make a difference.”
The Cool School scheme is developed by Cool Earth and enables businesses to be carbon positive by protecting endangered rainforest on behalf of a local school. Argyle is saving 260 tonnes of CO2 emission through their sponsorship, which also provides Saltash.net school an account where they can view their forest and connect with rainforest schools. Teacher Dan Roberts from the school has just returned from Peru with the charity after spending time living with a tribe and seeing what the rainforest meant to them. He said: “The Cool School initiative is a clever way of getting businesses to be carbon positive whilst helping UK schools to build relationships with our rainforest cousins.”
Cool Earth is already protecting 60,000 acres of endangered rainforest for tribal communities in South America. Matthew Owen from Cool Earth said: “Deforestation causes more climate change than the entire US economy. “Plymouth Argyle FC and Saltash.net School are leading the way in putting rainforest conservation in the heart of our schools and at the top of the business agenda.”
The charity has received backing from Sir David Attenborough as well as comedian Ricky Gevais who will promote the charity during his new live shows. Local businesses can make their chosen school a “Cool School” by sponsoring an acre or more of endangered rainforest.