Launch of new Classroom Section with brand new features for teachers on Action Tracker website
We Are What We Do, the not-for-profit company behind the million-selling books Change the World for Fiver, Teach Your Granny To Text and Other Ways to Change the World and the I’m not a Plastic Bag shopper have developed a new section on their Action Tracker website aimed at teachers and schools.
The Action Tracker, found at www.actiontracker.org.uk, encourages people to do small, everyday actions that have an impact on social and environmental issues. The site has 141 official Actions, including Write to someone who inspired you, Grow something and eat it and
Register as an organ donor.
The new Classroom section provides a number of resources that will be useful to teachers and anyone working with under 18s. One of these, the Teacher’s Tool, helps teachers find relevant Actions and activities, matching the age group and subject choices they select.
Useful Resources collates a host of free downloadable worksheets, interactive wallcharts, posters, and powerpoint assets, plus a wide range of short animations.
Make Stuff houses How To videos, tips and more free downloadable resources to help students make films, posters, presentations and other outputs to promote We Are What We Do Actions and campaigns.
The Campaign Planner walks users step-by-step through the necessary stages in creating a campaign involving their class, school or community.
These new resources complement the existing functionality which allow users to track their Actions and totalises their personal impact and the overall impact.
To date, 4,839,084 Actions have been done by 127,500 people.
Each Action is totalised too — for example the site tells us that the Action: Turn off the tap whilst you brush your teeth has been done 94,746 times which means about 2,179,158 litres of water have been saved.
Users can also track Actions as groups, combining their impact — a feature popular with schools who can set up different groups for different classes and compare their activity.
Each Action has a list of stats and facts, links to further info, and free downloadable resources attached to it.
The website makes doing, recording and encouraging others to do these simple, positive Actions easy and fun. Users can post comments, pictures and videos when they track an action, comment on one another’s posts, challenge others to do an Action and suggest their own.
The new tools aimed at teachers and schools can be used to run creative social and environmental projects in curriculum subject lessons, whole-school initiatives and with the wider community.
Nick Stanhope, CEO of We Are What We Do, commented: “Over the last few years, over 120,000 people have used the We Are What We Do Action Tracker to do almost 5 million small, simple actions and make important contributions to some of the social and environmental problems that we face. Now, we’ve created a way for schools to play an even bigger part in this. Schools in the UK have been leading the way through their commitments to helping their students do more and more for their communities and the environment and it’s our job to make this work even more effective.”
Charlotte Berry, Vice Head of Billericay schools commented: “Action Tracker from WAWWD is one of the most versatile educational resources available. Its flexibility allows it to be used meaningfully at all key stages and its useful features allow the teacher or student to create bespoke Actions and resources to suit their needs. All areas of the curriculum can be enriched by using the Action Tracker ideas in a variety of ways. Our school have chosen Actions which have inspired us to create the students’ own online magazine, launch major environmental campaigns as well as shaping projects and lessons on a smaller scale with groups or by individuals. Importantly the site, resources and related links are all seen to be exciting and relevant to the students and the Actions enable them to see themselves making positive contributions to the school and wider communities. All this and it’s free too!”
–ENDS–
For more information, quotes or high res images please contact:
Ella Wiggans
ella.wiggans@wearewhatwedo.org
71 St John Street
London
EC1M 4NJ
020 7148 7665
Editors Notes
We Are What We Do is a not-for-profit company (Charity Number: 1134546) that creates ways for millions of people to do more small,
good things. To find out more see www.wearewhatwedo.org