As soon as I heard about this virtual event which ran last Friday, I knew I wanted to attend because I know how challenging running a sustainability event can be. I wanted to see what these students who do events as their degree did to elevate their event. Here’s my reflections on the day…

One thing I noted straight away was how diverse the range of events were. They focused on lots of different aspects from ocean and marine life to crafting to food sustainability to bee conservation.

The events ran from 11:30am until 2pm and were titled the following: Under the Sustainability, Regrowth, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Forever Green and Just Bee-cause.

Each event had at least one guest speaker from various organisations and most included an activity during the event which required audience participation. The Under the Sustainability event ran a scavenger hunt which involved finding the answers to questions using the internet to find out about brands that have sustainability aspects. Regrowth did two crafts; one was a bird feeder and the other was wildflower seed bombs; both of which have should be available on their IG. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch brought in two external speakers and then ran a quiz on IG to reiterate the key takeaways from those talks. Forever Green showed a cooking and baking video, and the recipes for those can be found here. The team focusing on bee conservation, Just Bee-cause, showed videos on the importance of bee and gave examples of things you can do to help the bee population.

Another important aspect of each event was the fact that each one had chosen a charity to encourage people to donate to. Under the Sustainability chose City to Sea, Regrowth picked the Woodland Trust, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch supported Greenpeace, Forever Green raised awareness for the Sustainable Food Trust and the Olio food waste app and Just Bee-cause fundraised for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Each emphasised key facts about their chosen areas, all of which are emphasised on their Instagram account. A great way to learn more would be to check their pages: @under_the_sustainability, @regrowth_onlineevent, @thegreatpacificgarbagepatch_, @_forever__green_ and @justbeecause21. Some of the events were recorded so will have content coming out about the event, so keep an eye on those pages and the main event page @codegreenevent for more.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event and applaud everyone involved.

by Fran Allen, SGO Project Officer #learningforthefuture