Green Travel: How To Have An Eco Friendly Educational Holiday
Encouraging our children to understand the world around them is extremely rewarding, however, teaching them the responsibility to protect the world is an equally important role and it can go hand-in-hand with travelling.
Travelling can be one of the biggest impacts on the environment, substantially adding to your carbon footprint and adding to the earth’s pollution. However, travel is also an excellent way to educate the young, introduce them to new experiences, cultures and lifestyles. So how do you balance an eco friendly lifestyle with travelling the globe?
Green Wheels
Flying can leave a very big impact on the environment, so if you are looking to travel in an eco friendly manner, you may want to consider alternative forms of transport. When travelling with young students, alternatives such as coaches, ferries or even train journeys may be better for the environment and will most likely be easier on your pocket too! Although the journey might take longer, alternative transport is a great way to start your trip the green way.
Getting Around
Wherever you are taking your students, why not try a cycling tour once you reach your destination? A great way to reduce your carbon footprint as you travel, cycling is a fantastic way to explore the environment, get healthy and appreciate the impact fuel emissions have on the environment. If you are going further afield, try using public transport to help reduce the carbon footprint of your trip and make your exploration eco friendly.
Sleeping Green
Instead of a hotel, which uses huge amounts of energy to provide 24 hour lighting, hot running water and other luxuries to provide for their customers, why not try a greener way to sleep? Camp sites and youth hostels are great ways to lodge in an earth-friendly way, keeping the energy usage down and teaching your student group about responsible energy use. Far away from the electronic accessories of home, this is a great time to explore how to provide entertainment, heat, shelter and food without the high environmental cost of using electricity.
Eco Friendly Eating
Whilst you are on your trip, encourage your students to try local food, instead of indulging their home tastes. As well as teaching the value of other cultures by sampling different foods, local food is much better for the planet, as it doesn’t require the long haul shipping so many of our favourite foods are subject to. Teaching your students the value of eating local food is a delicious and practical way to ensure they continue to protect the environment through their habits as they grow up.
Being kind to our planet is something that has to be learned as habit, rather than effort. Using these simple tips and making saving the planet part of your everyday routine, you too can plan a truly green trip for your students and make your educational holiday better for the environment.
Sally Parker is a geography teacher and environmental writer who blogs on the easy ways to help save the planet. She is writing this guest post on behalf of http://www.travelbound.co.uk , a travel company dedicated to providing the best in educational trips and experiences and making life easier for teachers.
