Rolf, Inge and Cam from Carbon Neutral Kerikeri were delighted to be able to share the carbon neutral story with Springbank School students on Wednesday, 15 May 2019.

The juniors (years 1-7, image above) were showed the Kaitiaki movie and they were glued to it! About half of them had heard about climate change, and 2 had even heard about Greta Thunberg. We had displayed Greta in two of our background slides.

We explained about population growth, CO2 increases and, in pretty general terms, our calculator and how to use it, always drawing our examples back to the Kaitiaki video that they had watched earlier. We told them a bit more about Kaitiaki and our recent bike trip. The teacher picked up on the Kaitiaki theme.

The seniors (years 8-13 - image below) were given harder facts about the behaviour of gases, CO2 output per person, and how to use the calculator and the mitigation slide rule tool to see how changes to consumption behaviour impacted on household emissions and overall footprint.

The principal, Mike Warren, was very supportive and saw the activity as a chance to teach about climate change mitigation. Cam put the challenge to them to become the first school in Kerikeri to record and monitor the carbon footprint of their families and, to prove that this area is on the way to becoming carbon neutral. When we asked who was going to try out the calculator, about half of the students raised their hands!

Mike was happy that we had approached the two different age groups in different ways. One of the older girls came to us later and asked for a card, saying that she wanted to try out the calculator because she was a vegetarian, just like Greta.