The Royal Children’s Hospital

Enviroweek is a key school event for The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Education Institute.

“Our students really benefit from Enviroweek,” explained Head of Teaching and Learning at the hospital, Lauren Sayer. “It supports young people to understand that large problems can be solved when they take action. As educators, that’s such an vital message to pass onto young people.”

“We also love Enviroweek because it isn’t just about googling answers and writing them down,” explains Lauren. “It’s an event where young people connect to the world around them based on their own interests. Learning comes to life and that’s key to engaging our young people.”

“We are also a multi-age environment, and Enviroweek engages all ages from early learning to secondary, so that’s another major tick for us.”

Five Challenge Groups

During Enviroweek, RCH students ranging from 3 to 18 years old, will join one of five challenge groups led by RCH teachers. Students will choose groups based on their personal interests and tackle Enviroweek challenges.

“We have chosen challenges that will appeal most to our students and that they most wanted investigate,” Lauren explained.

Students will spend Monday and Tuesday of Enviroweek delving into the ‘why, how, where and what’ of their challenge. For example, the ‘Shoppers’ group will look at why, as a society, there is so much choice, what the impacts of all those choices and what the solutions to those impacts might be.

In the second part of the week, students will be ‘living’ their challenges and sharing their experiences, as well as their savings and results with other students.

On Friday the five Enviroweek challenge projects will be showcased to the wider community in the hospital’s meeting hub, Main Street.

Use the project based learning (PBL) lesson plans to help scaffold your students to design their own actions for Enviroweek.