How to get people to change

Reading and listening to Severn Suzuki's speech and thinking about the questions in our new English Persuasive Language resource got me thinking about how we persuade people to change their behaviour. 

Severns speech is very emotive and impressive from a 12 year old but it left me just feeling a bit guilty and inadequate.  Yes I know about all these problems (yes in 1992 not everyone did and also it was at the Rio Earth Summit so aimed at big decision makers) but HEr speech didn't really give me a sense of what I should do the change things.  It gave me the impression that the whole system is against me and that as an individual I wouldn't make much difference.  The problems come across as overwhelming (as indeed they are but feeling this doesn't help action).

I think that emphasising what people can do, the sum of small steps by everyone is a more powerful message.  Yes people must be aware of the problems to want to act but once they are then we need a more empowering message.

I hope that this is what we are doing with our School sustainability programs, giving teachers and students the knowledge of what they can do as well as the hands on experience of how easy and enjoyable it can be too.    If students and the wider community feel the personal benefits of their work (friendships, support, health etc) in their organic gardens, collaborative learning in the classroom, recycling and energy saving campaigns etc. and understand the cumulative positive environmental effect of doing this then hopefully that knowledge and action will spread out. 

We'll see.  What do you think?

Getting (more) organised.

Sorry we've been a bit quiet.  We've been busy organising ourselves and our systems.  We had a big team meeting on Friday out in the garden at Samudra.

As you can see quite an inspiring place to meet.

Well we've got ourselves organised and hope this means that we can help you all even more efficiently than before.  OF course as ever let us know what you want or need to help get your sustainability education flying.

We are continually developing our curriculum framework and I'm preparing a document that should help you see at a glance which of the resources on our website can help you teach about different sustainability concepts.

Enjoy the sunshine.  Lucy

The grass is always greener

Not just greener, there actually is some grass. Richard took this picture near Donnybrook.

Which cows would you rather be????

Not that difficult to answer. Which cows would you rather eat?

Crowded, no grass, eating grain and lying down (maybe the heat from the earth or because of the grain they eat instead of grass?) or walking around unstressed, grazing? Hmmmm

Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words

Fun and Inspiration at the Weekend

David and Skye in Action. Skye liked the dancing book.

Ingrid spreads the word. Giving away packets of coriander seeds hleped too.

We had a fantastic weekend at the Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta. Ingrid and I shared duties on our stand over the weekend, David and Skye helped me out ;) and Tundi (?), Ingrid's daughter had organised a fashion remodelling/recycling area futher up the street and had made herself a great outfit. Maybe Ingrid can post a photo?

I really enjoyed hearing how enthusiastic people were about what we are doing with Schools. You would hope they would be at a Sustainability fiesta but nonetheless people were eager to talk to us and very encouraging.  Our coriander seeds ran out and the leaflet stock was depleted. We got quite a few names on our living library list too. This is a new idea which I hope we will develop over the next few months so thank you to those that signed up, I'll be writing more to you soon.

So many people there doing great work. Shani and Tim of course for organising it all, opening their house and accomodation at the Painted Fish and generally getting people in their community on board.

Its down that way, no up that way! So many things going on it was hard to keep track.

I had some good conversations with Helen and Tim at Sustainable Energy Now. I'm impressed by their campaigning. Some good stats in their brochure....did you know that if just a quarter of homes currently supplied by synergy got a 1.5kw solar system this creates as much energy as the current coal fired power genration in WA. The friendly people at Fern community gardens opposite also signed up to our living library.

I loved the 'recycled' bikes. I've got a groovy rusty blue retro one myslef and was pretty inspired to try turning it into one that I could carry Skye in. Here's a just one of the many creations.

Guerrilla gardening was in evidence. Not sure if the chickens stay out on the verge all the time but the vegetables in the verge looked (and hopefully taste) great. So sculptural.
















I and many other people I noticed brought a rug from carpetsforcommunities.org.  Great little rugs made from recyled t shirt off cuts by women in Cambodia and all profits go directly to them. The stand was run by volunteers. I even got a photo of my rug being made. Its now cheering up our bathroom. If you're going to buy things then I can't think of a better type of enterprise to buy them from.

Loads of stuff for kids, the HotRockers to be; fairy gardens, exercise bikes to generate electricity with, music, costumes. I was really impressed by the model sustainable houses built by Year 6s. We've got a similar model building exercise as the finale to our Global Warming:Global Warning module (see the lesson 'What's the plan?). Its for slightly older students and I have to say I think its a great learning activity at any age. Really creative, allows them to express their ideas and its hands on and practical, makes a change from writing it all up in an essay.

Students from some of our schools were picking out their friends in our photos and other people were happy to find out what their old school was doing for sustainability.

I could go on and on. Can't wait till next year. I'll leave you with my favourite costume.

Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta

We are off to the Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta in Fremantle this weekend. We've got a stand, I've been making posters, Shae's been making up cute packets of HotRock coriander seeds to give away and we're hoping to meet loads of great people who want to help us make sustainability real in Schools and just generally to be inspired by whats going on.

Looks like the whole Hotrock team might get to be there all together too!!! 1st ime in our History. We've got our Tshirts, just got to go there.

The sun should be shining, think it will be an inspiring weekend. See you there..... Lucy

Want to win $50?

Feedback Competition

We want to make your life easier and provide you with great resources that save you time, that you enjoy teaching, that engage your classes and get your pupils thinking and acting for sustainability. We hope we are doing this but need your feedback so that we can improve what we offer and reach more teachers. We know that this takes time and effort on your part so we’ve come up with a plan to reward your generosity.

Win a $50 voucher from ecostore www.todae.com

How to enter.

1. Download and teach one of the lessons from our website.
2. Answer our feedback questions – online or email.
3. Put your name and email address on it to be entered into our monthly draw.

How to improve your chances of winning.

1. Teach more than one lesson and fill out a form for each.

2. Enter every month, we will draw on the last day of the month.

We welcome all feedback; positive, negative, new ideas or adaptations. We want to improve what we are doing and produce lessons that you really want to teach and that are easy and practical for you to access and implement.

Save time and answer online.

Or email hotrock@thehotrock.org.au and answer the following questions

• Which module and or lessons did you use?

• Which year and type of class did you use it with?
• Please write any comments about; how you used it, adapted it, any problems you had with it, what you & students enjoyed (or not) etc.
• Was it easy to find the lessons, topics etc that you wanted? Any suggestions to improve the usability of our website?
• Are there any other topics, types of resources, services that you think we can provide to help you educate for sustainability?
• Thanks for your help. If you’d like to be entered into a monthly draw to win a $50 voucher to shop at www.todae.com please give you name and email address here:

Name: Email:

We're giving you a head start for the 1st draw which will take place on 31st October.

That's 6 weeks to get teaching and feeding back to us (well 2 weeks hols but you could do the feedback then).