Lithuania: Bringing the community together for a noble cause

In this day and age, when we hear every day about energy savings and initiatives to achieve them, any opportunity to initiate actions and participate in projects is becoming commonplace, and is of great value in finding new opportunities to educate the younger generation. It is particularly important to introduce conceptual values to pre-school children by showing them all the processes.

At the beginning of September, we came together in a steering group and came up with some great ideas that we tried to to implement in our institution. One of the ideas, proposed by the pupils’ mother, an architect and engineering was to insulate the inside of a wall with recycled materials. The steering group really liked it and supported the idea.

What was needed most was the help of the community to collect the necessary amount of material and to insulate the whole wall of the group (the one bordering the field) from the inside, raising the children’s awareness of the fact that building quality is the future aspiration of all of us and that it is irresponsible and environmentally irresponsible to “heat the air”. We were very surprised to find that corrugated cardboard and egg cartons are excellent thermal insulation materials. Such materials give the walls a better thermal resistance and reduce heating costs.

This is all thanks to the efforts of the families of the three groups of pupils in our kindergarten, the commitment of the teachers, assistants and the whole community. It was only after the announcement of a project to collect empty egg cartons (egg trays) that a large amount of this recyclable material came into the groups. 343 egg trays were brought in over 20 days. The cartons were glued and then mounted on on the wall. We recorded everything and analysed the results together with the pupils. The wall of the group was insulated from the inside and the result was not disappointing. The group wall has been given an innovative look and the room warmer.

Both the educational establishment and the home are places where attitudes are developed and shaped, and attitudes, skills and habits. In order to achieve our common goals and make them a success, we had to to collaborate with parents, to involve professionals and experts in their field who shared their ideas, insights and discussions together, we implemented an idea that allowed the children not only to visually creative processes, but also make a strong contribution to their implementation and energy saving. Only a cohesive and active community, which produces a modern citizen who is open-minded about today’s problems, who is able to put ideas into practice and show children the importance of sustainable living and benefits. By gaining experience, the child becomes indifferent to nature and to the issues of today’s world.