The current crop of school students are probably the most environmentally aware, and the most environmentally active, there has ever been, but are we helping to live up to the ideals they have?
What does this mean for school trips
More and more young people, and adults for that matter, will be making decisions to travel based on environmental impact. Does this mean cancelling all overseas school trips? You may think we are biased on this one, but no it does not. It means working hard to ensure that the trips we do, live up to the ideals of those students.
There are some incredible benefits to learning in the real world. We can all remember those school trips to the WW1 battlefields which opened our eyes to the horrors of war. The sports tours which allowed us to meet players from other countries and learn about their culture and playing methods. And of course, the huge benefits of an overseas language exchange thrown into the country headlong to practice what we have learnt.
We believe the immersive nature of our expeditions makes global issues such as healthcare and poverty tangible human experiences. Not just poorly-imagined concepts or, even worse, just more bad news to be found online. It is these experiences that will inspire the next generation to think globally and consider not only ways to mitigate their personal impact on the planet, but their capacity to facilitate global improvements.
How can we help
It is therefore the responsibility of those who arrange these trips to ensure the impact on the environment is minimised, or indeed only serves to ensure an overall positive benefit.
Over the coming weeks we will be releasing blogs on different areas of travel to help schools travel more responsibly topics will include;
- Single use plastic and water when you travel
- Working with communities and buying locally
- Animal protection
- Socially responsible projects
- Carbon offsetting your trips
We’ve created a simple checklist to get you started when planning you next school trip. If you would like a copy, just send us an email or give our office a call.
Better yet we’d be happy to come and see you, or arrange a video call to cut down on our carbon footprint, to discuss how you can make your next trip more environmentally friendly.
