STEAMLabs: how do children feel about pollution?
- Borough: Hackney
- Organisation: STEAMLabs
- Topics: environment, children and young people
Who we are
STEAMLabs Hackney are a Community Interest Company (CIC) that delivers exciting, creative, and high-quality STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) workshops and events in Hackney and surrounding areas.
Our mission is to help children and their communities have fun with science. We’re incredibly passionate about cross-curricular learning and champion this across our programmes. In doing so we hope to encourage children to develop a strong understanding of how different subjects intertwine and give them an understanding of their world outside of the classroom.
Talking about pollution
Children learned about the different types of pollution: air, noise, land and water. They discussed the types of pollution they see in Hackney and talked about how the pollution of their community spaces made them feel. Emotions ran high and the children produced artworks reflecting their feelings.
The children were very upset and angry about the pollution they see around them. They reacted especially to the amount of litter in local parks and how the canal is full of plastic bottles and bags.
Expressing emotions through art
The children were asked to depict their emotions about litter in their artworks. They produced some very strong images where colour was important in conveying the different emotions they felt.
The children were really captivated by the session and were keen to keep their artworks to show their parents. They felt it was important to get as many people as possible to “do their bit” for the environment.
The changes we would like to see
Children are eager to creatively communicate their feelings about protecting their environment. We would like to see children’s education in environmental issues increased in engaging, creative ways that are relevant to and led by children. We would like children’s viewpoints taken into consideration and for them to be involved in large numbers with local and global environment issues, working alongside young, relevant, inspiring scientists.
We would like every child’s passion and imagination harnessed so they can be part of the solution to our global pollution problems. We want creative solutions within our area so that everyone can get on board with policies to protect our environment.
Find out more
Get in touch
If you have any questions you can get in touch with STEAMLabs at [email protected]
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