More about the Pod

An interactive website for teachers and eco- coordinators
It provides high quality cross curricular teachings resources, activities and games as well as a place to share ideas and showcase your work
The Pod helps schools measure the impact of their projects and recognizes the effort undertaken to complete them
For students it has great games, blogs, an interactive comic and media gallery
For teachers it has information sheets, resource packs, lesson plans, assemblies, activities as well as lots of useful templates
The Pod works in collaboration with Eco-Schools England to ensure all activities will help a school progress through the eco-schools process
Information sheets written with the help of the Eden project, help teachers and students understand the key issues before starting to decide how to address them
It represents the sustainability strand of the the London 2012 Education Programme.
The Pod runs three big national events each year which help encourage whole school participation

Choose a topic and read the information pack to learn about the key issues and considerations.
For each topic, we provide lesson plans, online games and activities
Choose an activity. 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.
Each activity starts and ends with an audit so we can measure and track the impact you've made
Share your experiences and celebrate your success by posting blogs about your projects and submitting lessons learned reports
Many activities include 'take it home' worksheets so students can share what they've learnt with their families and make similar savings at home
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 and certificates 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 blogs.

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 how to use the Pod page has a downloadable guide with more information on registration, setting up your school on the Pod and how to run activities.