The future belongs to the young, and right now that future is an increasingly uncertain place. Our aim is to provide students of all ages with some of the knowledge, understanding, and skills to help them navigate that future with resilience, confidence and wisdom. We want to empower them to make planet-friendly choices themselves, and to be able to amplify their voices in explaining those choices to those around them. Our sessions are age-appropriate and focused on solutions, but also highly engaging and, dare we say it, fun!

Schools Outreach

We can work with your school in many different ways to complement what you may already be doing, but see our ideas below for current assemblies, workshops and our Eco Conference. All our work with schools is free of charge, made possible with funding from the South Downs National Park Authority and East Hampshire District Council and a team of wonderful volunteers. All our school facilitators have previous experience of working within schools, and all hold an Enhanced DBS check.  Our safeguarding policy is here.  If you are interested in finding out more you can complete the form at the bottom of the page or email [email protected].

Assemblies

Climate Change 101

Where – your school

What ages – Primary Years 1-6

How long – Assembly with an optional follow-on session

A short introductory session, for anything from a class up to the whole school, suitable for KS1 and KS2. The introductory assembly covers the science behind climate change and its implications, then moves onto solutions, and is all designed to be very child-appropriate. The optional associated workshop is to make climate 'flags', which can be simple posters in a single lesson, or more complex fabric or paper collages over a couple of lessons. This is the children's opportunity to promote the solutions in a positive way.

Other topics

In addition to our introductory ‘Climate 101’ assembly, we are also offering assemblies on carbon sinks ; the waste hierarchy (what we can do about ‘waste’ before we recycle) and an introduction to sustainable transport. We are open to delivering assemblies on other topics that fit with your activities, such as fast fashion and so on.

Eco Conferences

Where – your school

What ages – Primary Years 2-6 and Secondary Years 7-8

How long – Half day

With support from South Downs National Park and East Hampshire District Council, PeCAN are offering free half-day eco conferences at your school until July 2025.  The sessions will be led by highly qualified and experienced teachers and focus on empowering students to make and communicate good decisions in the face of planetary crisis.

Biodiversity: we look at the meaning of this, the benefits, threats to it, and what we can do about those. Sessions for both age groups have an outdoor element wherever possible  

• lower KS2 /Y2 - focus on mapping/listing habitats around school
• upper KS2 - focus on a hedgerow survey in school

Healthy Seas: this includes biodiversity, but also other benefits of the ocean; threats to it and how we can take action. We can adapt this to suit years from 2 to 6.

Transport and Travel: we identify the impacts on the planet of different types of transport, but also the benefits of travel for understanding other cultures and ways of life.

Carbon: we look at the role of CO2 in climate change; the carbon footprint of 'things' and how we can make better choices armed with this knowledge; and the importance of natural carbon sinks. 

Water: we examine how much water it takes to make 'things', and that a water 'footprint' might go further that you would expect. We also look at fresh water supplies and the importance of protecting these.

For each of these workshops, we have a session of interactive learning about the topic followed by a creative period encouraging the children to find ways to share the knowledge they now have. We’ll offer a number of contexts to explore, from the artistic to the literary, from the spoken word to graphics! 

Bespoke sessions

Where – your school

What ages – Primary, Secondary, Sixth Forms, Colleges

How long – flexible

We can also offer bespoke assemblies, workshops and talks for different age groups depending on what the school needs support with.  Contact us if you have an idea for your school to discuss how we can help in more detail.

Our facilitators

Rachel Ritchie

Rachel is a qualified teacher with ten years' experience of primary classroom teaching. She has degrees in History and Environmental Studies and is also a UN-accredited Climate Change Teacher who now focuses on climate education as a visiting speaker to local primary and secondary schools and youth groups. She also gives talks to adults (including local environmental groups, students at Winchester University, and Parish Councils) about the urgency of the Climate Crisis and, importantly, to offer possible solutions.  In spring 2022, Rachel started the Petersfield Eco Café to encourage community, conversations and climate action. Rachel leads PeCAN’s Schools Outreach work and we’re thrilled to have her passion, experience and commitment to supporting schools and young people on the PeCAN team.

Scott Gudrich

Scott began his career as a professional rock musician, which laid the foundation for his creative work. Following his university studies he worked as a teacher, something which enhanced his people skills and passion for education and sharing knowledge. After several years, he returned to university to follow his childhood dream of working in the natural sciences and studied for a BSc in Environmental and Sustainability Studies followed by a MSc in Marine Environmental Protection

From 2020 - 2022 he was the Founder and Director of the Plover Rovers, a science communication charity focused on the English coast. He is a singer, guitarist and composer making music for the planet with rock band, The Lürxx. He also works with Alton Climate Action Network and is leading ‘Eco-Streets’, a grass-roots community project in part of Alton’s Whitedown ward, finding out where its residents stand on the climate crisis, how much they know and what the problems are for them.  He delivers schools outreach work for ACAN and we’re delighted to have his creativity on the PeCAN team.

Young PeCAN

Inspired by our friends at ACAN, who have an inspiring group of young people running Young ACAN we are looking to support the creation of a Young PeCAN group. 

Young ACAN formed in Oct 21 and since then they have achieved lots through regular meetings as a group.

• They have run 2 well attended popular Back on the Rack Clothes Swaps.
• They have represented the voice of young people at various public meetings including the Town Mayor’s Civic Service and the East Hampshire COP26 Conference.
• They commissioned a survey of young people in Alton and shared its findings with Alton Climate Action Network (ACAN), decision-makers including local government, and the wider public, to help understand more fully children’s and young people’s concerns about the climate crisis.  The survey suggests that climate anxiety is widespread among children and young people living in and around Alton. They feel they are being failed by adults at all levels of authority, who are simply not doing enough to address their concerns. Further support should be put in place to give children and young people a platform to talk about their concerns, and to manage their climate anxiety.
  
  The top three areas of action that respondents wanted to see were: protecting biodiversity (76%); reducing waste and litter and increasing recycling (67%); followed by: food and agriculture, growing more food locally, eating less meat and reducing food waste.
  
  You can find the full survey report here and see the recording of an open meeting where the data was presented here.  

If you or anyone you know might be interested in developing a Young PeCAN, we’d love to hear from you.  Just drop us an email at [email protected]

Work experience

We will try our best to host work experience placements for Sixth Form students who are interested in climate action and restoring nature.  Please contact [email protected] if you are interested in a placement.

Duke of Edinburgh Award Volunteer Placements

In early 2022 we hosted a group of 7 students from our local secondary schools working towards their Bronze and Silver Awards. 

The first half of their placement was in partnership with the Community Garden and Future Shoots and involved a community tree planting day, creating a section of wild meadow and making dead hedges.

The second half of their placement focused on air quality around Petersfield around their schools.  All students took measurements using an Air Quality monitor called Plume which links to your phone to present the live data.  They observed the readings on their phone, and had some prompting questions to think through about why the readings might be high or low, what was around them, what time of day was it etc.

Useful Resources (with thanks to EcoChi)

Click here for a link to the Eco Schools website.  Eco-Schools  empowers children to drive change and improve their environmental awareness through the international Eco-Schools Green Flag award.  Eco-Schools develops pupils’ skills, raises environmental awareness, improves the school environment and creates financial savings for schools as well as a whole host of other benefits.

University and College Union online resources for teaching