Lego Sustainable Cities
Using Lego, the children design, build and visualise a positive vision for our towns and cities where people and wildlife can thrive for generations to come. This helps to develop an understanding of what a sustainable city is and how we can create them to reduce climate change and increase biodiversity.
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Workshop Impacts
Through play, these workshops increase each child’s expectations to live in a healthier happier sustainable environment. It helps them to feel empowered to make planet-friendly lifestyle choices and career decisions.
Sustainability Themes
Teams work on one of eight sections of the city. In just a few hours, an average of 100 pupils can co-create their school’s bold and inspiring vision of a city bursting with green spaces, wildlife, vibrant communities, and real-world climate-change solutions.
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Powerpoint Presentation
The day begins with an assembly for all the children involved in the project, where they can share their current knowledge and learn how cities are big contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss.
Problems and Solutions
After learning about some of the problems causing climate change and biodiversity loss, the children are shown exciting and innovative solutions to inspire them in their designs.
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Technical Instructions
The children are given some technical build ideas to incorporate into their designs to ensure they are environmentally sustainable.
They can then use their wonderful imagination and creativity to put these into practice.
Sustainable Housing
The children design planet friendly homes that use less energy and water, care for nature and produce less waste. Their designs can include:
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Thick insulated walls to keep the house warm
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Big south facing windows to capture sunlight and heat
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Solar panels for electricity
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Air & ground source heat pumps for warmth
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Rainwater is recycled and used to water the plants.
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Home grown fruit and vegetables to reduce footprint
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Living walls & roofs, nature-friendly balconies & gardens to increase biodiversity corridors
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Green Spaces
Lots of green spaces are encouraged to provide important habitats, food & shelter for wildlife and to reduce climate change.
These include:
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Lots of fruit and nut trees
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Beautiful plant rich communal green spaces with cycle paths
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Pocket Parks on unused patches of land
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Parklets in parking spaces
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Buildings with green walls and roofs
Precious Resources
Water is one of the planet’s most precious resources, the children are encouraged to look after it by building:
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Wetlands where trees, plants and wildlife can thrive.
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Healthy clean rivers with lots of plants.
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Bioswales alongside roads filled with plants to soak up rain water and help reduce road flooding.
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Capturing rainwater for reuse.
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Planet Friendly Energy
The children design buildings and factories that are powered with renewable energy sources such as:
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Solar and wind farms
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Waste to Energy Plant
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Water, ground & air source power
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Plus innovative ideas like kinetic pavements using human movement
Planet Friendly Travel
The city encourages walking, cycling and scootering using the 15 minute cities concept where people can reach their destinations more easily.
Their designs might include:
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Cycle lanes, bike parking, bike rentals.
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Buses, trains, trams, car sharing and car hire.
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Less space for cars and more walking paths.
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EV charging points, EV & Hydrogen vehicles.
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Solar roads, street lighting and traffic lights
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Bioswales and Street Parklets
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Local Food Production
One of the challenges with cities is a lack of space to grow plants and vegetables. Children are encouraged to build roof farms, allotments, vegetable gardens and edible trees so that people can grow food more locally.
This results in a lower carbon footprint and offers a great way for people to connect with nature and each other, improving their physical and mental health.
Shops & Businesses
The shops and business need to be more responsible and carbon efficient:
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Making food and products more locally.
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Energy efficient buildings that don’t generate lots of waste.
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Second-hand shops and swap shops to avoid things being thrown into landfill.
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Repair shops and Refill shops to reduce plastic packaging.
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Recycling Ideas
The children are inspired to create a city that cuts down on waste:
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Buying less, recycling and reusing what we have
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Improved recycling centres that make sure every material is reused.
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Making do with what we have by repairing clothes and objects .
Imagination goes wild
The children are buzzing by the end of the day.
All of the children are invited back to take stock of the wonderful green city they have created and encouraged to share what they've learnt.
Incredible Creations
In just a few hours, an average of 100 pupils can co-create their school’s bold and inspiring vision of a city bursting with green spaces, wildlife, vibrant communities, and real-world climate-change solutions.
An Inspired Generation
During the reflection time at the end of the day, we are always overwhelmed by the children's creations and their ambition to create real–life improvements in their local area.
This is a powerful and highly-engaging learning experience that has the power to transform our towns and cities.
