Green Teacher Tess

Zero waste living: MY reality!
From left ♻️ My Recycling collected from 2 weeks
🗑 Landfill bag from 3 weeks
🍌 Food waste from 1 week

I began a zero waste journey 3 years ago and here’s what I’ve learnt:
1. There is no such this as “zero waste”. It’s a design term that describes an ideal circular economy.
2. It’s a privilege to be able to care about your waste, but if you can, I think you should!
3. it’s about water waste, energy saving and buying less stuff in general too!
4. Baking instead of buying stuff in plastic is fun, and often tastier!
5. Every little effort matters.
6. Find what works for you. Maybe you don’t have a bulk/refill store, but you can avoid plastic by getting things in glass, card or tin.
7. It’s okay to slip up but don’t give up completely.
8. Make small but significant changes like switching energy providers, using a refillable bottle + coffee cup, bamboo toothbrush, buying veggies plastic free etc.
9. Create easy systems to support living sustainably- once it’s a habit it’s no longer a huge effort or inconvenience- like setting up separate bins or ordering online from a store that supports sustainability.
10. You may need to make some sacrifices. For me, that’s not buying cereal, crisps. chocolates or sweets in plastic. But that doesn’t mean I never eat chocolate! I love seeing all the new stuff that’s becoming available which is less wasteful.
Honestly, the best thing is just knowing that your efforts big or small may not be saving the earth, but you’re doing YOUR bit to help, and we need everyone’s imperfect efforts 💪

My favorite thing to do at the moment? Literally stopping to smell the... roses, jasmine, elderflowers and any other fragrant flower in my path 🌷🌹💐🌸🌼🌻 It’s small things like this that are getting me through this weird- teaching online -social distancing world we’re living in. Anyone else found ways to be more mindful? P.S thank frikken goodness it’s half term 🙌🙌🙌

My favorite thing to do at the moment? Literally stopping to smell the... roses, jasmine, elderflowers and any other fragrant flower in my path 🌷🌹💐🌸🌼🌻 It’s small things like this that are getting me through this weird- teaching online -social distancing world we’re living in. Anyone else found ways to be more mindful? P.S thank frikken goodness it’s half term 🙌🙌🙌

When I heard this, my mind immediately went “ping!” This is it. We’re in this predicament, both pandemic and climate crisis, because the system is flawed. A few people benefiting off the backs of others, and our earth. But we have a real opportunity here... I hope we can emerge from this time more supportive, more community driven and with a keen awareness of our planet 💚

I may look excited here but this is all for the kids 😂 Behind this happy exterior, is a whole mix of emotions, namely 👉 🥴😬😳🤯🧐

Starting day 3 of online learning and thankfully I’m starting to feel a bit more positive and a little less self conscious filming myself. We are using seesaw as a platform and I’m getting my head around it. It can only get easier, right?! 🤷🏻‍♀️

As we navigate through these strange times as teachers, I’m trying to focus on being kind to myself, but also to remember the big picture. My job is to teach kids the important stuff. By that I mean, being mindful, kind to self, kind to others and of course our planet. So while learning continues in some way, I want to try make sure it’s not just Maths and grammar that’s happening or perfect powerpoints I’m making. We’re setting Earth day tasks, mindfulness meditation and gratitude sessions for the kids. Go easy on yourself teacher friends! 🙏🏻💚💚💚

✨How can you empower the kids you teach when it comes to understanding and dealing with climate change?

It’s all in what you teach them and the positive way you do it 💁🏻‍♀️ Give them the tools!

I was looking back over the awesome and different ways people have displayed this teaching resource on carbon footprints that I put together. I wanted it to be a fun and informative activity that can be used all year to give kids a better understanding of what causes climate change and tangible ways for them to help. I really enjoyed this lesson and will be finding time to teach it to my new class soon! They’re so ready to help and do more.

The resource includes a scavenger hunt followed by a writing activity, and I included other teaching ideas too. The link to my tpt store is in my bio 💚


@ London, United Kingdom

Wise words from high school musical-“We’re all in this together!” 😁 🌍👩🏾‍🎓👩🏻‍🍳👷🏽‍♂️👩🏼‍🎤👩🏻‍🌾👩🏾‍🚀
The time has come to shift how we do things. Governments wake up, corporations stop being greedy and every individual do your bit.
Be brave and have those awkward conversations at school with your leadership about changes you can make.
Chat to your colleagues about what’s going on.
Share with your friends.
Teach your kids.
Make changes.
💚
Let’s change the world 🙌

International extinction rebellion 🌍✊💚
We may not all be able to protest or just feel that it isn’t our thing to take part in stuff like extinction rebellion activities.

The thing is that a lot of people protesting don’t really want to be. But what choice do we have? We are heading for irreversible climate catastrophe. It impacts you and me regardless of where we live or how much we earn. Much of it is happening now in fires, droughts, heavy rain and rising sea levels. There is a small window of hope though, if we can only get everyone, particularly governments, to make necessary changes.

Besides making changes to how we live, we can share articles/videos/pictures of the protests, talk about it with colleagues and friends, raise awareness, challenge old habits and just support!

I’ve been to the protests in London a few times in the evenings after work just to show solidarity and feel connected with people who CARE. It’s always an amazing atmosphere of love and respect. I’m so happy to see all kinds of people from businessmen to doctors to families and kids! The time to act (in any way you can!) is NOW. We owe it to people in developing countries, we owe it to kids, we owe it to animals and we owe it to ourselves. 🙌💖

Do your bit! 🌍🐓🐄🐖🐂

One of the biggest steps you can take to helping our planet? Eat less meat and dairy! (Delish Vegan ice cream 🍦☝️)

The recent fires in the Amazon have been a result of clearing land for cattle and the soy used to feed the cattle. Not only are forests cleared, but cows burp up methane, the most toxic green house gas. Have you tried having a meat free day in your week? 🌿How about giving vegan/veg options a try next time you eat out? It doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Ideally we’d all cut out meat and dairy completely because of cruelty too, but having LESS is a great start.

Those who know me will also know I love these kinds of treats because they’re less wasteful too! Edible packaging 💁🏻‍♀️😆

Do your bit! 🐳🐠🦚🌿💚🌍

Sometimes being environmentally conscious requires a little more time or effort on your part. It might not be the “convenient” way of doing things but the bottom line is that we all need to become more environmentally conscious, particularly if we are privileged enough to do so. We need to make changes to our lifestyles because we cannot pretend any longer that it isn’t our habits which are destroying the very home we live in.

[Rethinking lamination 👆one way to do your bit as a teacher.]

So long laminating 👋🏽 I love to collect card from my kiddies to reuse for resources and backing. I’ve cut out 99% of my laminating because I truly believe very few things NEED to last as long as we think. Backing posters and resources is just as good! Next time you’re about to coat something in plastic, remember it’s set to stick around for hundreds of year!

We need governments to act! We need corporations to make changes! But we ALSO need individuals to believe that even the smallest of their actions makes a difference! I am so beyond proud of Greta Thunberg and the kids who filed a law suit against the world leaders who are the worst polluters. I’m beyond grateful to every one of the 4 million people who were at the climate strike ✊💚 Let’s use these examples as a reminder that as individuals, small change can lead to big change.

💡We so badly need to change how we view energy, resources and how we treat the earth. Turning off lights, seems like such an insignificant action but the concept of conserving energy and resources is a great one. Cutting back on energy consumption reduces the amount of electricity that power plants have to make, reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are burned each day. Even a small change can make a big difference – “if every American household traded in just one incandescent light bulb for an efficient CFL, the reduction in pollution would be equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the road.” 😮 Saveonenergy.com