Planet Protectors
You can be a planet protector too!
by Paul Kerensa
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To consider our relationship with our planet and what we can do to help protect it.
Preparation and materials
- You will need a copy of the book Planet Protectors: 52 Ways to Look after God’s World by Paul Kerensa and Ruth Valerio. It is available at: https://spckpublishing.co.uk/planet-protectors and there is a bulk discount for schools.
Assembly
- Welcome the children and explain that today’s assembly is about our planet. It is where we all live, and we share it with other creatures.
Ask the children to name their favourite animal.
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain that Christians believe that God created all of these animals alongside people so that we could share our planet. Many other religions and belief systems agree that we should care for nature and for animals. The animals are our neighbours!
- So, what can we do to care for nature? One thing that we can do is appreciate it.
Read ‘Tip 4: Love Your Coat!’ from Planet Protectors (p. 20). (If you don’t have a copy of the book, talk about the benefits of a good coat and the fun that we can have going out in all weathers, exploring the natural world.) - Ask the children to name a few of their favourite natural spaces to visit. Has anyone had animals visit their home or garden? Hedgehogs, squirrels, birds, butterflies?
Listen to a range of responses. - Ask the children whether there is a river or pond near to where they live. Is it a nice bit of water or not so nice?
Tell the children that in the past 100 years, something like 70 per cent of ponds in the UK have vanished! So, if we see a pond, a river or a lake, it’s important that we look after it.
Water is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible, so it must be very important to God - and it gives us life! - Point out that sometimes, humans have let down our natural world. We may have seen rivers that are polluted and full of litter. Climate change means that temperatures are going up and humans are responsible for pollution from cars, factories and other sources.
- Ask the children whether any of them have any ideas about how we can help to fix our natural world.
Listen to a range of responses.
Suggestions might include walking or cycling rather than using the car, eating less meat and using less plastic. - Ask the children, ‘How many rooms in your house do you think have NO plastic in them? Does anyone have a plastic-free room?’
Ask the children to think really hard. Some of them might think that there are one or two rooms in their house with no plastic - but remind them to think about every single thing in the room. There are plastic bottles, soap dispensers, toothbrushes . . . plastic gets EVERYWHERE in our houses.
Suggest that the children walk around their house when they get home and count how many rooms are really plastic-free. - Explain that going plastic-free isn’t easy, but many more sustainable alternatives are available nowadays, including bamboo toothbrushes and refillable containers.
- Ask the children who else on the planet could be our neighbours, apart from the animals. That’s right: people! We are ALL part of the natural world, and we can look after other people too, even those in far-off countries. We can look out for refugees. We can welcome visitors as friends.
- Explain that another way in which we can look after our planet is to consider the things that we wear.
Ask the children whether they can suggest how that might help.
Listen to a range of responses.
Read ‘Tip 19: Fast Fashion’ from Planet Protectors (p. 56). (If you don’t have a copy of the book, explain that by buying too much cheap clothing from across the world, we make factory owners and workers across the world work too hard for too little money.)
Suggest that instead of buying lots of cheap clothing, we can reuse, recycle and share it.
Ask the children whether any of them have ever used something that has been handed down by someone else. Perhaps their parents have been given children’s clothes by friends who have older children. Perhaps the children themselves have given away toys that they no longer play with.
Explain that passing on what we have, rather than disposing of it, can help us to throw away less, and stop us using up natural resources. - List some other ways in which we can help to look after our planet. For example, we could turn off switches, repair things rather than throwing them away and write to our MP about local issues that matter to us. There are lots of little things that we can do. Not everyone can do everything, but it’s important that everyone does something.
Time for reflection
Read Psalm 104.19-25.
He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens.
Then people go out to their work, to their labour until evening.
How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number – living things both large and small.
Let’s spend a moment thinking about our planet.
Let’s pause and think about times when we haven’t looked after nature as we should.
- Have we littered?
- Have we thrown something away when we could reuse it or recycle it?
- Have we taken for granted our planet’s resources?
Pause to allow time for thought.
- Think about one thing that we can change in our lives that will help us to care for nature better.
Pause to allow time for thought.
- What can we do this week to help make that change?
Pause to allow time for thought.
- What can we do to help save resources?
- What can we do to appreciate nature?
- What can we do to be a Planet Protector?
Pause to allow time for thought.
Think about the words in this prayer.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for this wonderful, big, round planet we live on.
It’s an amazing place, full of remarkable people, animals and plants, and hope for the future.
Help us to protect our planet,
And help us to make changes in our own lives, for the sake of all who share this planet with us.
We need your help, and we need to help each other.
Amen.
Song/music
‘Save the planet’ by Kath Bee, available at: https://youtu.be/uexTBl79T_A (2.43 minutes long)
‘All things bright and beautiful’, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT_oDqOEGpc (2.40 minutes long)
