Lily Cole helps champion environmental education

In the Q & A session after the screening, Lily mentioned that whilst at school, environmental issues weren’t a big priority for her. Now, care for the environment is one of her main concerns.

In the film, she visits a school in Acre province in Brazil, where the children learn about the rainforest for a whole day each week. Luciana Berger MP asked whether the UK should consider something similar.

This would be a great idea. Today’s young people are the adults of the future, so it surely makes sense for them to be as informed on environmental issues as possible. Then they can make the right decisions as adults, parents and consumers in the future to ensure that we minimise any further damage to our planet and indeed begin to redress the balance.

I don’t think we’ll ever manage a day a week, and as our Curriculum Guides for the Total Green School Awards show, there are already plenty of ways for primary school children to study environmental issues within our current Curricula in England, Scotland and Wales.

But making environmental education a subject in its own right would show how much importance we as a society place on looking after our planet for future generations. That could only be a good thing.

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