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Discover what this means
Supported by Generation Green

Go green

Find out about becoming a Green Champion and choose your theme.

Back to Activities

You’ll need

  • Pens or pencils
  • Sticky tape
  • Paper
  • Buckets, containers or hoops
  • Printed theme introductions (optional)

Before you begin

Choosing your Green Champions theme

  1. The person leading the activity should explain what the Green Champions programme is all about. They should help everyone understand that it’s about enjoying the outdoors, connecting with nature, and getting stuck into making a real difference to your environment.
  1. Everyone should chat about each of the themes using the information below. Which one would they like to take action on?
  1. The person leading the game should place the three labelled containers around the space.
  1. Everyone should find a natural item, such as a leaf, twig, pebble, or feather. They shouldn’t take anything that’s attached to a living tree or plant.
  2. Everyone should choose which theme they’d like to take action on and vote for it by putting their natural item in its container.
  3. Everyone should wash their hands.
  4. Once everyone’s had their say, the person leading the activity should count the items. The theme with the most items is the winner.

Birds, bugs, and bees

This theme is about understanding how wildlife works together with plants, the weather, and the landscape to form a bubble of life called an ecosystem. In this theme, you’ll explore why animals are useful and what they need to live.

You’ll get stuck in by improving local habitats (places that animals and plants live) to make sure lots of different plants and animals can live there happily.

You can focus on birds, bugs, or bees – it may depend on where you do your sessions.

Growing green

This theme is about understanding how plants work with animals, the weather, and the landscape to form a bubble of life called an ecosystem. In this theme, you’ll explore which plants are good for nature. You’ll also find out about invasive species: when people introduce new plants or animals that harm an ecosystem.

You could get stuck in by planning, growing, and caring for your own plants, or you could help out at a local nature reserve.

Plastic pollution

This theme is about understanding how the items we use in everyday life affect the world. In this theme, you’ll explore what happens to items after they stop being useful to us.

You could get stuck in by finding out about recycling in your local community, taking part, and encouraging others to get involved.

This may be a good theme to choose if you want to stay close to home but don’t have a lot of green space nearby. You’ll still get to spend time outdoors as much as possible.

  • If you’re not able to get outdoors, people could vote by throwing a ping pong ball, bean bag, or a scrunched up ball of scrap paper into a container. They could also write or draw their vote on some scrap paper, make a paper plane, and launch it through a hoop. Remember to recycle any paper you use.
  • If you’ve got some toy building bricks use them to build a tower for each theme. Everyone should add their brick to the tower for their favourite theme – the theme with the tallest tower wins.   
  • If you’re not meeting face-to-face at the moment, you could do an online poll at your next online meeting. We’ve set up a way for you to get votes from young people digitally – you can find it on the Green Champions page on the Scout Adventures website.

Reflection

In this activity, everyone worked together to discuss the themes. Why was it useful to discuss the themes with other people? What influenced the way people voted? Did other people’s thoughts and ideas help anyone make a decision? Did learning a bit more about each theme help? Would people have voted any differently if they’d only seen the titles of the themes?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Outdoor activities

You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.

Gardening and nature

Everyone must wash their hands after the activity has finished. Wear gloves if needed. Explain how to safely use equipment and set clear boundaries so everyone knows what’s allowed.

  • You could split into three groups and give each group a theme. The groups could chat about it and then pitch it to the rest of the group – can they persuade them to choose their theme?
  • You could add an extra element to the activity by hiding the labels or containers around your meeting place. Everyone will have to work together to find them before they can vote.
  • If anyone finds reading difficult, make sure you read everything out.  You could also add images to the labels.
  • Make sure the activity is set up so that everyone can reach all of the items.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Community Impact Stage 1
Community Impact Stage 2
Community Impact Stage 3
Community Impact Stage 4

You could take it further by trying to identify the natural items that everyone collected. Does anyone know what sort of trees the leaves and twigs are from? You could use the Woodland Trust’s Tree ID app or their nature detectives ID spotter sheets to help you figure it out.

This activity gets everyone involved in sharing their thoughts and planning what they do in their programme. Try to make sure that everyone has their say.