Take 5

Explore Environmental Impact

Climate change is never far from our minds. If you’re looking to explore the environmental impact of the way we lead our lives with your students, we’ve got lots of resources to help you.

1) People of the past have been very resourceful with natural materials. This pot scrubber from Gairloch Museum needed no packaging and made use of simple, easily available materials.
Natural Heather Pot Scrubber | Museum of the Highlands
Use the ‘What’s that Noise?’ activity to guess what’s making the sound as a nice way to introduce the topic.
Natural Heather Pot Scrubber | Museum of the Highlands

2) Take this further by thinking about the materials we use today. Consider objects in the past that would be made of plastic today through this stoneware lemonade bottle from Brora Heritage Centre.
Dingwall Lemonade Bottle | Museum of the Highlands
Then, explore if the time has now come to ban plastic packaging with ‘The Big Question’ activity on the site.
Is it time we banned plastic packaging? | Museum of the Highlands

3) How have people made changes to their behaviour? Discover why we no longer collect birds’ eggs, and the decimating effect this hobby had on the bird population through an incredible collection of eggs from Gairloch Museum.
Collection of Birds’ Eggs | Museum of the Highlands
You can use the ‘Object in Focus’ activity at the bottom of the page (in the link above) to let your students guess what the object could be.

4) Make a memorial for declining animal species with the activity ‘On Reflection’ – or pledge to take positive action to help today.
Declining Animal Species | Museum of the Highlands

5) Finally, decide if we should take more drastic steps to reduce our environmental impact. Use objects from across the Highlands to debate, ‘Should we stop having holidays for the sake of the planet?’ in ‘The Big Question’ activity.
Should we stop having holidays? | Museum of the Highlands