Youth Groups

You don't have to be a teacher to benefit from the ESD Network. Leaders of other groups such as Brownies, youth groups and others are free to join and receive monthly information bulletins.
 
On this page you can find out about:
 
-The Green Generation and Great Lever Youth Involvement Team.
-activities and games to help raise environmental awareness for using with groups.
 
In the past, some groups took part in Bolton's Environment Challenge. Although this is no longer "live", there are still some badges and materials available if you want to run a similar scheme. Contact Steve for details: 01204 336652 or click here

Activities and Games

The Sun Shines On...
You need: nothing
 
 The group sit in circle/semi circle
 Someone starts standing and says 'the sun shines on everybody who.. (insert)'
 All those people have to stand and move to another chair
 The person who says it also finds a chair leaving a new person standing
 The new person repeats saying 'the sun shines on..'
 
This can be adapted for any theme and is good for breaking up groups. Ideas for an environmental theme include 'the sun shines on everybody who ...
-recycles paper/cans/plastic
-has never dropped litter
-uses both sides of paper
-has re-used envelopes
-has fed the birds
-has planted some seeds
-has walked to school today
-has bought something Fair Trade
-has ever planted a tree
-switches lights off when they leave the room
-has bought organic food
-re-uses carrier bags
-has eaten food grown at home
-re-uses plastic bottles for other drinks etc..
    
        
Seeds' Needs
You need: 4 sets of cards you can make yourself
 
Make enough cards (of each set) for 1 per person in the group. The Children could make the cards as part of the activity. Each set of cards need to have the same word as follows:
 
Set 1 -'Water'
Set 2 -'Sunlight'
Set 3 -'Soil'
Set 4 -'Air' (or Co2/oxygen)
 
 Four people each take a set of cards and stand in four corners of the room
 One person in the middle shouts out one of the words at a time e.g. 'water'
 The group or 'seeds' run to where the water cards are and collect one
 Before everyone has got one, the middle person shouts another... and so on...
 You can introduce 'slugs' and 'birds' to 'eat' (tig) the seeds out of the game
 The first 'seed' to get all four 'water', 'sunlight', 'soil', and 'air' wins the game
 
This is a good running around game and introduces the idea of what seeds need to survive, and some of the 'hazards'.
 
 
Global Warming Balloon
You need: a balloon
 
Ask the group a series of questions, and blow into a balloon each time anyone puts their hand up. Blue or green balloons might be a good idea, to reflect the planet. Eventually it will burst, illustrating how lots of small actions add up to having a big effect on the environment.
 
Questions for Global Warming. 'Hands up if you:
-have ever left a light on in an empty room
-sometimes leave things on standby instead of switching off completely
-open a window rather than turning the heat down
-boil more than the amount of water you need in a kettle
-ever leave the fridge door open
-don't use lids on pans and turn the heat down
-are taken everywhere in the car
-don't have any low energy light bulbs at home
-never recycle
-don't try to buy things with less packaging
-don't buy recycled goods e.g. loo roll
-use a hairdryer to dry your hair
-never re-use carrier bags
-don't shut down and turn off your computer
-don't make sure your food is grown locally'
-never by recycled paper
 
You could follow this with a discussion on how each of these contribute to global warming. (E.g not recycling means more energy is used to produce items from raw materials, which means more CO2 emissions, which add to the greenhouse effect, and therefore global warming.) Food miles similarly.
 
Also you can do a more general version about spoiling the local environment.
E.g. Hands up if you have ever:

-painted graffiti on a wall
-dropped sweet wrappers
-dropped fast food
-missed the bin -and left the litter there
-vandalized a park/bus stop
-get lifts everywhere in the car
-smashed bottles outside
-used disposable items
-spat chewing gum on the ground
-have ever written on a bench
-wasted water while brushing teeth
-left dog mess behind etc...
 
Food Chains
You need: nothing
 
This is based on the 'paper, stone and scissors' idea, but with spider, shrew and flea. The shrew eats the spider, the spider eats the flea, and the flea feeds off the shrew. Or choose your own creatures.
 Divide the group in to two teams, and stand them at either end of a room
 Teach them 'actions' to represent the creatures
 Each team secretly agrees which creature they will be
 The teams face each other in the middle, and after '3' reveal their choice
 The team that 'eats' the other chase them back to where they came from
 Any caught before they reach their end of the room join the other team
 Repeat until one team gets everybody!
 
Food Chains 2
You need: cards with different creatures written/drawn on, safety pins.
 
Discuss food chains, explaining each food chain in the game, choose from:
(algae-Waterflea-fish-otter)
(leaf-caterpillar-bluetit-sparrowhawk)
(soil-worm-blackbird-cat)
(soil-plant-snail-hedgehog)
(sun-grass-cow-people)
 Each child is given a creature card, to be pinned onto their backs
 They start walking round and round the room
 Now and then you can shout 'hazard' and they run round
 Sometimes shout 'danger' and they run round the opposite way
 On the command 'dinner time' they find their prey, and put their hands on their dinner's shoulders
 Once they have been 'eaten' they can't eat another
 The first 4 children to form a chain are the winners
 
Bat and Moth
You need: two blindfolds or better still, masks decorated like a bat and moth
 
This demonstrates the way bats use sonar, or sound waves bouncing back to detect its position and prey.
 Stand the group in a big circle and choose 2 children to be bat and a moth
 They are both blindfolded, and the bat has to find the moth
 They do this by saying 'bat' to which the moth replies 'moth' until it is found
 You can then introduce 'trees', 'walls' etc. to show how the bat receives signals bouncing off various objects, and must decipher them from the moth.
 
Re-using Yoghurt Pots
You need: yoghurt pots, paint/markers, some compost, cress seeds, water.
 
Discuss what we throw away, what we can recycle how a lot of things can be re-used. Decorating pots and planting cress seeds is easy, they grow quickly, and can be harvested. So this also demonstrates growing your own food, and food miles. a
 
Re-using paper
You need: Scrap paper, cardboard, bulldog clips or staples.
 
The group could collect paper that has been used just on one side, e.g. letters, flyers etc, and card from home. They can make a notebook by cutting up the paper, attaching it together, and decorating the front. Also work out the total of what new notebooks would have cost, and therefore the money saved.
 
Litter/Recycling Relay
You need: 2 litter pickers, 2 'bins' & rubbish. (You can buy pickers from the Council 336796)
 
You can vary the theme from a litter race to a recycling version where they separate rubbish and recyclables into different containers. Collect 'rubbish'; drink cartons, plastic bottles, and fast food boxes are ideal. Some items need preparation which the children could do, such as screwing up crisp bags/paper and securing with tape, to make it easier to pick up.
 
 Divide the children into teams and set up the bins at one end of the room
 Put the rubbish at the other end, and have a team stand in line at each side
 They use the litter picker to pick up each piece, run to the bin and drop it in
 They then run back to their line, passing the picker to the next person
 The teams get 1 point per item
 
Who am I?
You need: Paper with pictures/descriptions of animals, safety pins.
 
Attach a piece of paper to each child's back without them seeing what it is. They have to find out what they are by asking other children 1 question each. All questions can only be answered with 'yes' or 'no'. Or you can do 'What am I?' with trees, flowers, habitats etc.
 
Good for encouraging them to think about wildlife and places.
 
Confused Instructions
You need: nothing
 
Get children to run on the spot. Say 'stop' and 'go' with the opposite meanings, and likewise with jumping and clapping. Bring in summer (they do cold actions) and winter (warm actions), and 'environment' actions. When you say:
'Recycle'-they turn round on the spot once
'Pick up litter'-they crouch down and touch the ground
'Save energy'-they stop and stand still
'Save water'-they hold out hands to collect the rain
 
Then swap the recycle/litter, and energy/water meanings! (ie they do 'recycle' actions when you say 'pick up litter'). Illustrates listening and thinking about what we do, and is a good warm up.
 
Environment What's in the bag?
You need: a bag, cards with words on, see below, a clock/watch. See yellow card.
 
 Place all the cards in a bag and divide the group into two teams
 The teams take turns to pick out and describe words without saying them
 (Or alternatively they can mime the words, breaking down into syllables)
 Their team mates guess each word pulled out until 30 seconds are up
 Someone keeps score of how many words the team guess in the 30 seconds
 The two teams take turns until everyone had a go at picking out the words
 Then add up the scores
 
Describing wildlife and the places where various creatures live is good for encouraging them to consider its importance and how we can protect it. Other Categories could be energy or water, or a general environment theme with a mixture of words.
 
Poetic Word Play
You need: scrap paper and pens or felt-tips
 
Someone picks a number between 1 and 10. The group each summarise a promise to help the environment in that number of words. They could take turns to read them out, or make posters and decorate. Likewise someone chooses an environmentally related word everyone can create acrostic poems. Or they could pick their own words and do this.
 
Campaign Posters
You need: Pencils, felt-tips, paper
 
Discuss the good and bad things people do to the environment. If you have access to a board/flipchart list the bad things. Ask why they think people do it, and how they would persuade people to change. Then ask them to design posters or slogans to encourage this. You could have a prize for the best one. Ideas for messages to get across could be:
-Don't drop litter
-Recycle
-Turn off lights
-Walk to school
-Turn off the tap
-Turn off PCs
-Grow your own food
-Compost fruit
-Pick up after your dog
 
Good for reinforcing messages and for highlighting a need to persuade others.
 
Drawing by Good Communication
You need: Blindfold/s, paper, marker pen.
 
In pairs, one gives instructions, and the other is blindfolded and has to draw following the instructions. You can give them something simple to draw like a stick man putting something in the bin, or tree. Its best if each pair does it whilst the others watch, with a marker, on paper pinned to the wall. It is funny for the others to watch! Or several pairs can do it at once.
 
This is about listening and communicating what you mean to others, and how it is not always obvious to them what you are getting at.
 
Views about the Environment
You need: Lots of old magazines, scissors, glue, large paper.
 
Start with a discussion on what the environment is like now. Maybe list a few points on a board. Then in groups or pairs, ask them to look through the magazines and cut out images to make a collages, which represents what the environment is like now. Each group should hold up heir collage and explain the images and what they represent. Then have another discussion about what they want the environment to be like in the future, and do the same again.
 
Good for discussion the issues, encouraging consideration of the future and showing how you can use scrap materials to produce artwork.
 
Helping the Environment Memory Game
You need: Set of cards *PDF to be added*
 
Use the green cards, (photocopy and cut out if you need more sets). They should do this in small groups.
 Shuffle and spread out the cards face down
 The aim is to match the environmental action with a picture, by trying to remember where cards are
 Each person has a go at turning over two cards
 If they match, that person keeps the set of two
 If not, they turn them back face down in the same place
 Play until all the sets have been taken; the winner has the most cards.
 
Journey Sticks
You need: Some sticks, a few colours of wool, scissors, a walk outside.
 
Give each child a stick about 30-50cm long, and a few lengths of wool in different colours. You can collect sticks from the floor in a woodland area or the children could find their own. Ask them to find natural items whilst on their walk, and attach them to the stick with wool. Examples could be leaves, twigs, feathers, seeds, moss, fallen bark, etc. They should use colours of wool to represent what they saw, e.g. brown for tree trunks, blue for water or sky, green for plants, pink, red, white etc. for flowers, and so on. When you return, each child shows their stick and briefly talks about how it represents their journey.
 
Scavenger Hunt
You need: Time outside, paper bags, lists of items. (Possibly disposable gloves)
 
Make lists to give to the children and ask them to find everything on the list outside, in a park/garden. You can theme different versions, but make sure you return items to their environment unharmed, and use gloves if finding litter.
 
Ideas for your lists:
(pick 'urban' or 'rural' items depending on your area)
-Moss
-Something useless to nature
-Crisp bag
-Feather
-Seed carried by wind
-Steel can
-Thorn
-Something yellow
-Aluminium can
-Leaf
-Something round
-Sweet wrapper
-Insect
-A thing that reminds you of yourself
-Plastic bottle
-Grass
-Something you like
-Paper
 
You can discuss the items later, maybe compare the urban and rural.
 
Treasure Hunt
You need: Pre-prepared walk route outside, questions on the area, pencils.
 
Decide on a route for a walk, and devise questions based on the environment. Examples of the type of questions include:
-What type of tree is found next to a red church?
-How many chimneys are on the building opposite the park?
-What date was the library built?
-What colour are most of the flowers at No. 10?
-Where can you find the words "insert inscription from a buiding"?
- Fill in the missing letters found on the street. C_ _ _ _ H (a street name)
- What house is named after a plant? E.g. Ivy cottage, Fern house etc.
 
The Aliens come to Visit
You need: Time outside, an investigation list, paper and pencils.
 
Have a discussion about other planets and aliens, including what aliens might think of Earth. Tell them that for the next hour they are going to become aliens and investigate the Earth form that point of view. They could event make masks, hats or headbands to wear. Give them a list of things they have to find. They can make a note of them, draw pictures, collect items or take photos.
 
Examples for the list could be evidence that:
-human beings exist
-small creatures that live in the ground
-some creatures can fly
-something that shows people drink
-something dead
-something that show people eat
-something alive
-humans sometimes spoil their environment
-human build constructions
-humans sometimes look after their environment
-nature 'makes' constructions
-something beautiful
 
When you get back discuss what they found and as aliens, what they think of the Earth and the way it is treated.
 
New Words Game
You need: scrap paper and pens or felt-tips
 
Someone chooses an environment word. Write it in large letters and display in front of them. They do a competition to see who can create the most words or longest words. You could do this each week.
 
*Environment What's in the bag words PDF to be added*