Forget Fast Fashion - a project to show how second hand clothes can become teenage fashion

It started with the Oxfam shop in Summertown, Oxford - 20 bags of second hand clothes, carefully selected for the teenage eye by the clever Oxfam team. On a cold Saturday morning, clearly requiring silly hats, clothes were collected and taken to St Clare’s College on the Banbury Road where a team of fashionistas from St Clare’s, Oxford High School, and The Cherwell School were waiting to turn second hand into high fashion.

A few days earlier the group of students from the three schools had met for the first time at Cherwell School, where they presented to each other the findings of their research on the problems of the fast fashion industry for the planet (water use, pollution, waste - it’s not pretty) and for people working in poor conditions in the supply chain. Galvanised by an appreciation of the extent of the problem, our teams were back together to show the world how to turn second hand into top teen fashion.

After several hours of sorting, selecting and creating with the help of fashion fan, Jeni Williams from Big Wheel Theatre in Education, our teams had their outfits ready to go.

In the wake of a passing climate march we made our way to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, where we were met by Museum Educator, the wonderful Sarah Lloyd.

Then it was out into the Museum for some fashion shots amongst the dinosaurs.

Two days later we were back together, this time at Oxford High School, creating posters, with the expert help of the school’s technicians. And finally, the censored versions made it onto social media.

Huge thanks for this project go to Vicky Bullard from St Clare’s who picked up this project and ran with it with me; to St Clare’s College for a wonderful venue for our outfit selection and an all day breakfast for everyone; to Charlotte Richer from Cherwell School who does so much on enrichment for their students, on top of a full teaching schedule; to Oxford High School’s Helen Wilson, Head of Textiles, and her colleagues Yasemin and Joanna, the wonderful Art and Textile Technicians who taught the students to use Photoshop to make their posters; to Janet and her team at the Oxfam shop in Summertown and the Oxfam education and communications teams who were so helpful; to Rebecca Nestor and Julia Patrick from Low Carbon Oxford North who supported the entire project; to Sarah Lloyd at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History for being so flexible and kind; to Jeni Williams for bringing her creativity and calm; and of course to the wonderful, fun, creative, passionate and simply amazing young people who gave up their time and energy to this project.

Hopefully we can do a rerun next autumn with a new group of year 12s, and without Covid so that the students can all mix more easily and we can build on our experiences of this year.

Cherwell School wellbeing camping trip to Wytham

We dodged the rain! And it wasn’t too cold. In a repeat of a wellbeing event we ran in July for Cherwell School, last week we had 22 more students come for some relaxing time in the Woods.

The ten year 10s were brilliant - put up our new gazebo, cooked apple crumble, prepped dinner, lit the BBQ, carried firewood up the hill, built the campfire, and generally threw themselves into life in the Woods for 24 hours. We hope they benefitted from their experience.

Camp fire and marshmallows at the end of the day

They were followed by twelve year 12s who were sophisticated and interested in everything. They enthusiastically launched themselves into discussions, willing to walk and walk, and were polite and thoughtful.

Mr Littlewood taking carbon measurements with the year 12s.

Cleaning Bean Wood Cottage

Bean Wood Cottage at Wytham Woods isn’t in great shape. In the past it has been used by the Guides. Today we want to clean it up and start using it again for activities for young people. So a group of enthusiastic volunteers carried buckets, water and cleaning equipment on a glorious autumn day in 2021 to make a start.

Next job is to get the builders in to sort the gutters out so that the walls can dry out. Watch this space.

Nature at the Ashmolean Museum

Kim Polgreen 23rd September 2021

Monday had to be the most fun I’ve ever had at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I joined the Ashmolean’s Secondary Educator Clare Cory, woodland ecologist Dr Keith Kirby, and entomologist Dr Liam Crowley to look for nature in the art works and objects. We spent an hour and half on a voyage of nature discovery: in the Dutch still life gallery identifying insects, looking at the plants in John Inchbold’s English pastoral paintings, in the Pre-History gallery discussing how long it takes to cut down a large tree with a hand stone axe (several “long” days!), in the Silk Road exhibition where we discussed how wasps make paper from wood and silk worms prefer White Mulberry to Black Mulberry bushes, and passing through the stringed instruments discussing where the best wood for making violins comes from.

What is that flower / bug??

Clare and I are collaborating with Sarah Lloyd at the Natural History Museum to develop learning resources for the new GCSE in Natural History - a new qualification intended to connect young people with the natural world and understand human culture through the lens of the natural world. (It is hoped that the GCSE will be available for teaching from September 2023, and we hope to be supporting teacher training from 2022 and teaching the GCSE as an extracurricular subject from 2023.) The purpose of this visit was to seek insights related to nature, and connections with human culture.

My favourite insights from our discussions were -

1. The insects in the Jan van Kessel paintings are remarkably accurate for their time, but the dragonflies are holding their wings in a position that they never do in life - showing that the artist painted them from dead specimens - totally logical if you have ever even tried to take a photo of a dragonfly!

2. Since nature is used as decoration and often as symbolism in art, artists’ depictions of nature are generally not “accurate”. For example, artists might put species together that would never be together in the same place or at the same time of year (although Liam did tell us a wonderful story of having helped to date a painting by identifying insect species within it). This wonderful video from the Ashmolean discusses how a naturalistic painting by van Kessel actually contains fruits from different seasons, “stock” paintings were used in other paintings at a later date, and different insects carried cultural meanings.

3. Some significant human cultural advances such as silk, paper (and the understanding of gravity) have been made by people who spent time outside and noticed what was happening in nature.

Our next steps are to turn these insights into some fun resources to help teachers, students and parents connect art, culture and nature.

Abingdon School Year 13 fieldwork skills development

On 21st September 2021 we hosted 44 Abingdon School students and their teachers at Wytham Woods for a day’s field work skills development. The day was designed and run by the teachers themselves and was totally brilliant. Our role was to show they what was available at Wytham Woods in a recce visit, and one of the ecologists we work with supported them on the day.

The students were kept very busy. One group did carbon measurements in the morning, and the other did soil infiltration measurements, and then they swapped at lunchtime.

The carbon measurements were done in the 1950s Thuja and broadleaved plantations at Wytham which are adjacent and easily accessible from one of the main paths through the Woods.

Their field work involved laying out 25m square plots, measuring every tree at chest height, measuring the height of every tree using an phone app, collecting and weighing 4 metre squares of leaf litter, and measuring percentage cover of shrubs for 4 separate square metres. They were then going to analyse their data back at school.

The infiltration measurements were largely about learning about how best to conduct experiments. The students were encouraged to try out their technique and refine it as they repeated it, thinking about how to minimise errors.

It was really interesting to see how smart phones were being used as tools. Students used an app to measure tree height, Siri to generate random numbers to pick random sampling plots, timers for the infiltration measurements, and the Seek app to recognise trees.

The students then had to think about what projects to choose for their NEA coursework. They were also going on a trip to Birmingham to consider human geography projects. We hope several of the come back to Wytham to collect data for projects.

To bring your students to Wytham for field work do get in touch. kim.polgreen@ligc.co.uk.

Climate and Nature Summer School at Wytham Woods

Learning about research taking place at Wytham Woods with the indomitable Curt Lamberth

In late July, 2021, Twelve 15 - 17 year olds spent three busy days camping in Wytham Woods. They talked to Oxford scientists about our nature and climate challenges and the ideas that people have to address them, and learned about some of the challenges that the wildlife at Wytham is dealing with as the climate changes. In the evenings they went badger watching with one of the badger researchers, finding mats with one of the bat researchers, and came back to BBQ, campfires, marshmallows, and nights in our huge Berghaus Air 8 tents.

This annual summer school is normally held at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, but because of Covid, Wytham was the safer option for 2021. It was so successful, that rather than moving back into the City in 2022 we will run this again at Wytham Woods.

Poetry workshop for teenagers with Poet in Residence Sarah Watkinson

On a beautiful autumn day in 2020, just before it started raining, Wytham Woods’ out-going Poet in Residence, Sarah Watkinson, and Youth Educator in Residence, Kim Polgreen, held a poetry workshop for teenagers in the Woods.

Sarah is a biologist and a wonderful poet and communicator. This event was just 90 minutes long, but the students wished it could have been longer. It was calming, energising and uplifting all at once.

One of the students commented that she had been in the woods many times before but had never engaged with it in that way before. To sit still and contemplate the thoughts that arise, and share those thoughts with others, was a wonderful way to be in a natural space and to reflect how one feels about that experience.

We wrote a few lines, Sarah read her poem about seeing a badger undergoing a routine check in with the scientists, and we talked about our favourite poems. Wytham Woods has a new Writer in Residence and we look forward to more writing events over the coming year.

School field work at Wytham Woods

In August and September 2020 we held information sessions for local teachers to discuss how they could use the Woods for field work and other activities to support the school curriculum and student wellbeing. As a result, over the autumn term, three schools have brought groups to undertake A-Level Geography Non Examined Assessment field work.

They were all measuring trees, for projects on the carbon cycle and carbon sequestration. It is great to see how students are practically engaged with carbon and climate issues. Other schools are booked into to do some biology field work and one group is going to do a 5K run round the woods!

Insect science and art at Wytham Woods

In early October 2020, before it got too cold for bugs we dragged bug expert Tom Atkins away from his research work in the Woods, and joined forces with the OU Natural History Museum and The Ashmolean to put on a fabulous event on insects. A group of teenagers joined us to hunt for bugs in the leaf litter and in dead wood in the Woods. Treasures were a MASSIVE hornet which made one of our collecting bugs vibrate she was so cross with being captured – we put her back where she wanted to be as she was heading for hibernation - , an ichneumon wasp, and a devil’s coach horse beetle. And Tom brought two very cute and active Minotaur beetles that he had borrowed from Shotover for a couple of days. Sarah Lloyd from NHM brought some beautiful moths from their collection and gave a fabulous talk on the breadth of the insects and how they are related in families. Clare Cory from the Ashmolean brought slides of some of the beautiful pieces of art in the museum which depict insects, including some which were used by artists to show their skills so that they would be recruited to add the insects onto other works! Then we sat quietly, warmed by the camp fire, and drew.

Making nature videos with teenagers in Wytham Woods

Making videos in the Woods

In August 2020 a group of teenagers made videos about the scientific research and the art projects taking place in Wytham Woods. In small groups, they spent an hour with one of the researchers and learned about what they do and what they have discovered.

The students then worked with Angel Sharp Media to create short videos about what they had learned, to be shared on social media. They had complete freedom about how they presented the information they collected, and the resulting videos are a wonderful interpretation of what they took away from their interaction with the researchers and the woods that day.

We hope that they will inspire other students to come and explore for themselves.

Appointed as Youth Educator in Residence at Wytham Woods

I’m so honoured to have been made the Youth Educator in Residence at Wytham Woods. Many thanks to the Conservator, Nigel Fisher, and the wonderfully supportive team in the Estates Department of the University, for the opportunity.

The Woods were gifted to the University of Oxford by the ffennell family in around 1944 when their only daughter, Hazel, died in her early 30’s. The ffennells trusted the University to preserve the beauty of the Woods, and to use it for research, for education, and for enjoyment by the local community. The Woods in part have fulfilled their responsibility for education through their support of the Hill End Outdoor Education Centre. Whereas Hill End focus on primary age children, this new role will allow us to develop a “nature education” offering for teenagers in the main area of the Woods. I am excited to start exploring the opportunities.

Sustainable Fashion with Oxford Climate Club

Wow! 2 hours went really fast today at the Natural History Museum, with barely a break for a biscuit. We talked about the problems of fast fashion and looked at some of the amazing innovations people are developing to combat the problems.

Did you know??

• Washing clothes releases half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres into the ocean every year. The equivalent of over 50 BILLION (!) plastic bottles. Ooops!

• 75% of the impact of our clothing over its’ life time comes from WASHING and DRYING. Wash less people!! And use all that lovely wind to dry your clothes. :)

• One cotton tee takes as much water to make as a person drinks in 2.5 years!!

• The clothing industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions - and we thought it was farting cows!

• All sorts of other noxious emissions such as Volatile Organic Compound are released to the air when clothing is made. Very bad news for people who work in and live near those factories.

• 100 billion items of clothing are bought each year. A DUMP TRUCK of clothing goes to landfill EVERY second!

Thanks to Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Forbes.com, The Guardian and other fabulous information providers for these juicy facts which raised our indignation and got us thinking.

On the positive side we enjoyed the following initiatives -

Trad businesses trying new models

https://www.marksandspencer.com/c/plan-a-shwopping

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2019/10/john-lewis-launches-sustainable-buyback-trial/

Back to the drawing board approaches

https://www.wearethought.com/sustainable-fabrics/

https://po-zu.com/pages/about-po-zu

https://rapanuiclothing.com/our-story/

Rent don’t own business models

https://mudjeans.eu/lease-a-jeans/

https://www.hurrcollective.com/

And the most fun - new fabric tech!

https://boltthreads.com/

http://www.modernmeadow.com/our-technology/

Now in solution mode, we talked to Zaqiya, the founder of clothes exchange project, Swopitup, about how to set up clothes swaps in schools. Fired up we all left with action plans intact.

Salient moment for me today. I asked the students whether they needed any help from the adults to get the swap shops off the ground and they just shook their heads. They were confident, determined and organised - planning their next steps as they left the session. I thought that just about summed up the relevance of the adults these days - the teens have got this covered. We just need to move over. It felt good.

“I think it was really good. I liked how there were lots of conversations and discussions. I didn’t just get to learn new things, I also got to hear other people’s perspectives and ideas. This has showed me how there are things we can do to help. ”

— OCC participant, Feb 2020

“Do this workshop in schools!”

— Everyone who participated today.

Thanks so much to Sam, Oxford student and Climate Club volunteer, for ideas, support, contributions and positivity. More Climate Club in a few weeks.

Kim

PS - these guys, www.beeco.green saw this blog and emailed us suggesting we link to their guide on sustainable (and unsustainable) fabrics. It looks really good so we said yes. There is lots of other good information on there too. We haven’t verified anything about this organisation but the information seems sound - check out sources before you base an essay on it however!

ECI MSc field trip to CAT

The trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Mid Wales has been one the highlights of the ECI MSc for about 20 years. I was lucky enough to accompany the group again this year. It is a wonderful few days, with fun workshops on wind farm planning, low energy futures, and visits to a solar farm, a hydro plant and a wind farm. There were parties, pizza, lots of delicious food at the CAT cafe, and wonderful conversations.

Last year (2019) we offered a week at CAT as one of the LIGC weeks, but nobody signed up! I think we didn’t explain it well enough, and I’m not sure we can now. CAT is magical, and those who visit fall in love with the place, but it is one of those experiences that is hard to describe. It’s about slowing down, stepping outside our usual hectic lives, finding time to think and connect. It’s a small haven with warm beds, fantastic food, and beautiful nooks and crannies to hang out in with friends, as well as a laboratory for low carbon living and a change to explore and exchange new ideas. We think its a great place for a small group of teens to have fun, learn some stuff, and explore the local mountains and beaches. Perhaps we’ll try again in 2021!

Kim Polgreen

A sustainable Christmas?

Well that was tough! There are so many ways not to be green at Christmas and I feel that as a family our score was probably about 3 / 10: “must do better”!

Wrapping paper. I had good intentions to make fabric present wraps etc etc, as per those good people on Facebook, but in the end settled for recycled and recyclable paper from Oxfam. The non plastic tape that I had ordered from &Keep didn’t arrive in time so I ended Christmas day removing plastic sticky tape from the pile of wrapping paper in the living room! Little use for this year was my plea to rellies that next year we could all avoid glittery and shiny cards, paper and tags. It pained my to throw those in the bin.

Food. We spent a fortune on an organic turkey and bacon, and bought all the veg from the farmers market. So was feeling good. Totally let down by the plastic tubs on shop bought Christmas puddings and trifle. Note to self - give up work and be a domestic giant next year and make it all from scratch. Male family member spent literally months making and nurturing an enormous Christmas cake from organic ingredients (which come in plastic bags of course).

Presents. My brother loved his eco gift bag (I think), which included bamboo loo roll, and a paper packet of toilet cleaner. I hope he realised I was celebrating the fun of eco ideas with him. Totally failed to persuade the teenager to have a second pair of sea-plastic trainers and ended up buying (a fabulous) pair of leather and plastic ones which will end up in landfill for a thousand years. Went for buying books from the wonderful Blackwells Bookshop in Oxford for everyone else - the mistake was doing it online because they send every book in a separate parcel in a separate van!! Next time - GO to the shop, by bike!

Chocolate. Adult male in the family tried hard to avoid palm oil when buying stocking fillers but ended up with a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging around some very expensive and delicious chocolate.

Best thing about working on climate change all year it turns out is that you can switch off the gloomy social media feeds and focus on family life for a few days. Merry Christmas!

Business for a Wilder Future

Our local Wildlife Trust, BBOWT, went straight for the business brain this week with an event at the Said Business School on “The Role of Business in a Wilder Future”. Intrigued, because I have always seen business as having a key role in ensuring we don’t endanger our own futures by damaging our limited planetary resources, I went along. On one hand it was an inspiring event - Jordans Cereals talking passionately about sustainable sources of almonds and oats being the highlight for me. And meeting the fantastic Kathy Willis who is hopefully going to lend us one of her team for our courses next summer was brilliant.

But on the other hand it did feel as if the arguments being made were the same as those I was engaged with 20 years ago as a sustainability consultant for businesses. The same arguments and opportunities are being discovered by a new generation of sustainability managers - which goes to highlight how hard it is to shift a paradigm. Perhaps the time is now right. It really does seem that good business means working within the bounds of what the planet has to offer.

Wilding at St John's College

Tickets were in short supply for a talk at St John’s College yesterday, but cold driving rain, and the fact that people get lost traversing St John’s site meant that I was able to squeeze in. Wilding, Isabella Tree’s recent book, is an uplifting account of how she and her husband “wilded” their farm in Kent, the Knepp estate. Many people have been entranced by this story, and hearing about it first hand from Isabella left me with an enhanced sense of hope for our futures.

After years of conventional farming, Isabella and Charlie finally stopped trying to extract a profit from their land, and, withdrawing their machines and chemicals, they relaxed and let nature step back in. They took out all the fences across the land, blocked up the ditches and stood back and watched the land heal itself, and the species come back - insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals. On advice from a Dutch expert, they fenced the outer perimeter and introduced large herbivores - longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, and tamworth pigs. These three complement one another in the way they graze, and between them they challenge the vegetation and keep opening up new opportunities for fresh growth and diversity of species and habitats.

Over remarkably few years, by letting nature lead, the farm was transformed from the typical barren landscape we are sadly so used to in the British countryside, to an astonishingly rich British wilderness, which is not only seeing rare species literally fly and hop in every day, but is now profitable.

My very next action when I got home was to book myself a camping spot and safari at Knepp - for when the weather warms up a bit.

Field Studies Council

An invitation to an event at The Linnean Society in London requires an affirmative, because to peer at the books and exhibits it holds feels like stepping back in time to an innocent and exciting era in scientific thought. London is full of quirky hidden places, and for a naturalist, this place holds a special power.

I was at first sucked straight past the door, tucked away as it is under an archway, into the impressive Annenberg Courtyard towards the Royal Academy, with its temporary exhibitions on Eco-visionaries and Lucian Freud - I need to get back there! But once inside the Linnean Society I felt weirdly at home amongst gathered naturalists past and present. It occurred to me that it was the confidence I had gained from naming birds and plants as a child, and later understanding how they interacted, that set me off on a path that led to my helping teenagers come to terms with the climate emergency today. And I think many of the other people there that day had had a similar journey - although it does seem that many people consider teens to be a challenging group to work with, while I think its the best.

The event was the 75th Anniversary of the Field Studies Council, a fantastic charity which teaches people young and old to feel at home in the outdoors. I am really interested in what they offer and keen to see if we can share ideas to the benefit of our LIGC students.

It was a day of talks and discussion around the theme of field work. From tales of adventure in far flung places, to urgent visions of how we can solve our climate and ecological emergencies with outdoor education, the day felt collegiate and hopeful. Favourite talk of the day? Prof Pete Higgins. Check out his TED talk. My head is swimming with ideas.

Kim Polgreen

Ellen MacArthur Foundation talk to IB teachers

A day in Warwick University conference centre on an IB teacher training event usually means delicious food and interesting conversations, and this time was no exception. We were very grateful to IBSCA for letting us come for a second time to talk to their delegates about climate change.

This time we brought our lovely friend from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation education team, Harrison Wavell, to talk to them about the Circular Economy and how it is a vital approach to tackling our climate and ecological emergency. A circular (regenerative) economy is one where we use our waste as our raw materials, and design our products to re-enter the manufacturing cycle at end of life. It is an approach which bursts with great ideas and is leading to some of the most exciting an innovative business models we are seeing today.

It turned out that an hour was not nearly long enough for our IB teachers. Harri had them hooked. IB teachers think outside the box and you could see the excitement as the education experts immediately saw the application to their own teaching and schools. We left them slightly frustrated not to have more time to talk about their ideas, but hopefully we’ve spread the CE meme!

“Really interesting and challenging - links well with my curricular teaching.”

— Rupert

“I like the part about creating student who think in systems”

— Mamoun

Harri (pictured above) is teaching with LIGC on the circular economy course in July 2020 in Oxford.

2040 the movie

If you get a chance to see a screening of 2040, grab it. Even if you are still in blissful ignorance about climate change, this movie will make you feel great. And if you are feeling even a tiny bit worried about the future today’s kids will face, then watching this will give you a whole new energy.

I learned about a last minute screening at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (where we are running the first meeting of the Oxford Climate Club for school students on Saturday - very excited!), through the very active Parents for Future Oxford network (check out your local Parents for Future group on Facebook - it’s really fun). I grabbed a ticket and cycled off in the pouring rain. The lecture theatre was packed - that’s Oxford for you.

The film’s Director and star, Damon Gameau, and “renegade” economist Kate Raworth* who features in the film, were there for a Q&A. Plus Izzy from one of the Oxford secondary schools who, with three friends, started a petition asking for more climate teaching in the curriculum, which has over 90,000 signatures so far. The convener could barely stop the audience from clapping everything everyone said, people were so energised by the movie.

The film showcases some of the existing technologies and approaches that, if applied fully across the planet, could take us towards a future that looks a whole lot better than today, let alone the future we are currently heading for. Three favourites: (1) marine permaculture using very fast growing seaweed that can absorb CO2 from the oceans (where most of the CO2 ends up), increases fish stocks and reduces pollution; (2) local electricity grids linking small solar panels on house roofs making communities more resilient; and (3) rapidly building new soil which absorbs carbon - and improves farming! See the What’s your 2040? website for more information.

*read Doughnut Economics, or at least look at the website if you haven’t already - fun, uplifting, logical - we have used it on LIGC courses and Kate has been to speak to our LIGC students.