Tag: Eco Schools
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Make an African plastic bag football
Hold an 'African Footy' tournament!
These sheets give step-by-step instructions to help your pupils make these ‘recycled’ footballs - just like thousands of children in African countries. It’s a great activity to link to a recycling project and can be used to discuss the uses of waste materials in the UK - it’s also a really fun thing to do with your class!
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How to make a Keyhole Garden - Starter Kits
Advice for two designs of the African garden
Keyhole Gardens are a great addition to any school grounds and a really great technique used across Send a Cow projects in Africa. A Keyhole Garden is a type of kitchen garden that recycles as it grows. The design - which looks like a keyhole from above - incorporates a central ‘basket’ where compostable waste is placed and water is poured. They are especially useful in areas where good soil is scarce, often adding nutritious vegetables to diets. Send a Cow uses them as part of our training, and they get fantastic results; families start to grow enough to eat and sell.
You can buy a Starter Kit to get you going for £10, by calling us on 01225 874222. The kits contain seven seed types commonly grown in Uganda, growing and building advice, info on how the crops are used in Uganda and coloured seed markers. The two files below also help to show the Ugandan style version and the rocky Lesothan version. Also, see how we made a Ugandan style garden in the UK in the Powerpoint and then make your own using our kit and enter the competition! -
How to recycle a plastic bottle into a toy
Dennis from Uganda re-uses a drinks bottle to make a car
This short video shows how ‘waste’ can be re-used and made into toys like this plastic bottle car. It is typical for young boys like Dennis from Uganda to make their own toys out of recycled materials such as bottles, tyres and plastic bagsas as there often is little money to buy them. Use of locally available resources is one of Send a Cow’s principles as it creates uses out of things that are often seen as waste. Why not have a competition in your class to see who can make the best car; send a picture in to us (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))and we can put the best up on our website. If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
Make a toy car from a plastic bottle from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
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Plastic bottle re-use & recycling ideas from Africa - Video
Lorna from Uganda shows various uses for plastic drinks bottles
Lorna from Uganda shows how they re-use plastic drinks bottles on their small rural farm in Kumi. From solar lights to drip irrigation, the bottles make themselves very useful in all aspects of life. Use of locally available resources is one of Send a Cow’s principles as it creates uses out of things that are often seen as waste. Watch the video (or use the Powerpoint below) with your class and why not have a design competition for the most ingenious uses for bottles. Then send them in to us (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) and we will put the best ones on our website! If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
14 African uses for plastic bottles from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
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Bag Garden Starter Kits
Small gardens, ideal for small hands
Bag Gardens are a type of African garden that Send a Cow teaches families how to make in Africa. They are also a great way to get your pupils involved in a growing project, learning about healthy eating and life in an African country - with plenty of related resources and images to help you. These mini-gardens make the most of soil, compost and waste water, are easy to weed and can be grown in schools. Use the link below to find out more - and order a Bag Garden Starter Kit for £12, or call us on 01225 874222.
www.sendacow.org.uk/africangardens
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Climate change in Africa - information boxes
Why going green matters for Africa
Africa is the continent most likely to be hardest hit by climate change. These information boxes could form a display to help pupils think about the importance of being green. The facts outline some of the possible affects of climate change and should be carefully set in the context of positive steps that pupils can carry out in the UK, as well as the positive work of Send a Cow - helping families to grow food in a sustainable way.
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Keyhole Gardens - video clips
Find out how Keyhole Gardens are used at home & school
A Ugandan group and school children in Lesotho show how to make a Keyhole Garden in these two videos. If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
How to make a Keyhole Garden from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
Keyhole Gardens in Lesotho from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
You can download these videos for use in schools (if Vimeo is blocked) by creating a Vimeo account, going to the video and choosing the ‘download’ option on the right.
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Bag Gardens in Uganda and the UK - video clips
Hope from Uganda shows how to make a Bag Garden
Hope and her friends make a Bag Garden in the first video and the second shows how pupils made their own gardens in a UK school. If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
Making a Bag Garden in Uganda from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
Bag Gardens in a UK school from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
The high-quality version of these video can be found on our Cabbages & Cowpats DVD. Order a copy here.
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Make an Energy-saving Stove
Simple mud stove design that saves wood
These stoves are used in Send a Cow training in African countries as they use less wood and take smoke away from the cook. They are also a great idea for a design project for older pupils. You can make them over the period of a few days, depending on the weather, and with a bit of supervision they can be cooking their own food on it within a week! You could also set pupils the task of designing their own versions of the stove using various different materials.
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Read to Feed fundraising
Encourage reading and raise money for children in Africa
Read to Feed is a great way to both get your pupils reading more and raising money for children in Africa through Send a Cow. Not only that, the books that they read can be linked to learning about Africa and the environment. The pack contains all you need to get your class going: bookmarks with stickers to keep children focussed, sponsorship forms and certificates to reward them. You can order a pack in the Order and sign up page., but to keep our costs down we ask that you please only order if you are definitely going to use it.
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Bag Garden lesson ideas
Some ideas for further learning
Some suggestions of how you can add some extra learning to a Bag Garden project - making comparisons with life in the UK and helping children learn about the challenges that children in African countries face.
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Bag Garden Powerpoints
Explaining the what, how and why of Bag Gardens
These Powerpoints show what Bag Gardens are all about, how they are useful for African families and why they are a great idea for children in the UK to make. Pictures are included of children in the UK and Africa making gardens. They are a good way of introducing Bag Gardens to your pupils.
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African Gardens leaflet
All about Bag Gardens, the competition and ordering a kit
These leaflets explain all about the African Gardens competition and how you can purchase a Bag Garden Starter Kit for £12. The competition entries have to be by July 9th each year, but there’s nothing to stop people ordering kits and growing their own Bag Garden all year round. You can view the leaflet as a pdf and order some for for your school or event on the Order and sign up page.
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Keyhole garden animation
A fun introduction to special African style gardens
This fun, colourful animation from our kids site, Cowforce.com, explains why special gardens are needed in some places in Africa (like Lesotho) and how they can help a poor family. Really useful for an assembly and as an introduction to our African Gardens work in the UK. Turn your sound up to enhance the experience. We have supplied an exe file for PC that should open straight up (over 2MB) or a Quicktime file that is smaller for PC. Have fun.
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Wire toys
Make your own version of these African toys
This lesson is based on the toys that children in Africa often make out of wire and ‘scrap’. There are examples of these ingenious toys in the Powerpoint below and hints and tips for how to make your own. This makes a great Art lesson and can lead to some discussion about different cultures and recycling waste materials. Children should wear safety goggles for this one!
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How to make a Tip Tap handwasher - with video clip
Easy to make African tap for a school garden
A fun, practical challenge for pupils. They can get into groups and make their own version of this simple water conserving/hygiene device used in Africa. A great addition to your school garden and they work well next to Bag or Keyhole gardens. Links can easily be made to the DT curriculum (eg Moving toys). You can also enter the ‘Best Tip-Tap’ category in our African Gardens Competition by using the entry form contained in our kits. If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
How to make a Tip-Tap from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
