The Pod > About the Pod

What is the Pod?

The Pod is designed to help schools become more sustainable.
It provides teachers with the information they need to teach green issues, and a simple framework for them to help students run green activities and share their work with others. We have called this framework ‘Learn, Act, Inspire.’
For students it has great games, blogs, an interactive comic and media gallery.
It represents the sustainability strand of the the London 2012 Education Programme.
It has been developed with Eco-Schools and the Eden Project.

First students learn about the issues around a key green topic, for example energy, water or waste. For each topic, we provide lesson plans, online games and information packs.
Then students take action. Each topic has a range of activities, specially designed to help your school save energy, water, waste or carbon. These range from small-scale activities such as switching off lights to larger projects such as installing insulation.
Finally students inspire others by telling the rest of the school about the things they have learned, taking their ideas into the local community and sharing their work with other schools across the UK.

Schools win medals for each activity they complete. Running an activity has several stages.
First, students audit current behaviour. For example, how many electronic devices have been left switched on in the school?
Then they run a campaign to change behaviour. They write a blog about what they are doing, sharing images, movies, podcasts and written work.
When the campaign is finished, they carry out a second audit.
The medal they win depends on how much they have changed their school and how much effort they have put into their blog.

Sharing information with the rest of the school is a great way to start inspiring other students, maybe by creating a green notice board to display examples of the things they have learned about or participating in a whole school assembly.
Other schools can read the blogs that students have written on the Pod website.
Students are asked to include at least one Lessons Learned Report in each blog. This contains advice about overcoming any challenges they faced.
Students can upload images in to the Pod gallery, showing how they are continuing to change their school.
Students’ audit figures are fed into their school pod-o-meters. These show the potential energy, water, waste and carbon savings the school has made.
Ready to start your journey? The Getting started page has more information about preparing your school for action.