• Roadshow & Eco Float

    school events

Sussex Green Living’s mission is to advance the education of the public in the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment, in particular by educating the public about how to adopt an environmentally friendly lifestyle and improve their ability to reduce their negative impact on the environment.

We do not wait for the people to come to us, we take to the road! In the spring of 2021 thanks to two grants from the Sussex Community Foundation (Welton Foundation) and Horsham District Council Community Climate Fund we purchased and retrofitted a 1974 milk float into our eco float. With a number of other grants we took the float and our newly formed Bright New Future Roadshow out to schools and community events. In 2022 this community outreach work was funded with a TNL Together for the Planet award.

Jump forwards to 2024 and our roadshow has adapted into a Wildways Roadshow, this all embraces nature recovery in collaboration with the SDNP, Weald to Waves, Wilder Horsham District and Horsham Green Spaces. Contact us to learn more.

Subject to grants we can offer this roadshow to state schools. We are able to provide a quote to independent schools, event organisers and councils to bring the roadshow to be part of an event or as a stand-alone event.

The aim of the roadshow is not only to create a fun, entertaining and educational environmental event, but also to assist in building strong communities with a clear path to wholistic, sustainable, resilient and thriving futures.

This brings multiple benefits for the communities, for the environment and also for the mental health and wellbeing of all the individuals involved. In the face of anxiety, we are bringing a vision of a future which looks positive, yet very different from today, as communities can be supported to develop a thriving village hub which may involve repair cafes, men’s sheds, exchanges of clothes, books or seeds or even planting community allotments and orchards.

We aspire to helping the impact ripple out over many generations to come.

Goals of our community outreach with our Eco Float and Roadshow: 

  • Offer creative, fun, educational, practical demonstrations and advice.
  • Use interactive performances such as music, dance, drama and art.
  • Promote discussion and increase understanding of the immense urgency of the Climate and Nature Crisis.
  • To excite and inspire others to take action and share by word of mouth and example.
  • To education and empower people to make changes to reduce carbon footprints, reduce waste and conserve nature.
  • Encourage children and adults to spend time in nature, to become citizen scientists, monitor and help with nature recovery and connectivity to green spaces. 
  • Encourage the sponsorship of Pollination Education Station with an educational plaque to inspire community action. 
  • We will encourage each of the schools to sign up to National Education Nature Park and Climate Action Awards. This is to empower children and young people to make a positive difference to both their own and nature’s future. 

an environmental eco milk float with the words Make Earth Cool Again painted on the front.
an environmental eco milk float with the words Make Earth Cool Again painted on the front.
Eco Garden
Eco Garden
The wood wide web
The wood wide web
school
school
school
school
Refill
Refill
events
events
Village market in Pulborough
Village market in Pulborough
A group of envirinmentally conscious youths standing next to an eco milk float
A group of envirinmentally conscious youths standing next to an eco milk float

Watch our roadshow promotional video produced in April 2021 (3 mins 20 seconds)

Learn what our Eco Float and Bright New Future Roadshow achieved in 2021 (3 minutes)

What’s on Offer?

You can select a the elements of the roadshow to suit your audience and the space available.  This might be our Eco Float on its own, or organisers can  choose from a ‘pick n mix’ of interactive performances and activities to accompany the static display of our Eco Float and the School Woodland Theatre lorry.

When on site they pop-up like a small environmental festival and can be connected by a purpose-built waterproof shade sail if required, providing a covered and well-ventilated workshop or demonstration area.

The Sussex Green Living Eco Float  

Host Carrie Cort

Our Eco Float is a 1974 retrofitted milk float with colourful signage sharing environmental solutions and a stunning painting of healthy future landscape, all ideas to build cleaner, safer, healthier, happier and thriving communities. The displays carried onboard are changeable but generally include waste prevention through repairing, refilling, remaking, recycling and sometimes our cheeky frog mascot Pedro makes an appearance too!

Examples of linked activities depending on the school or event:

  • Kinder clothes (can focus on sustainability in school uniforms)
  • Recycling, upcycling and waste prevention
  • Mini eco home and garden and on the back a mini Pollination Education Station
  • Creative upcycling activities
  • Grow your own – planting up in peat free compost easy to grow vegetables, salad, and herbs to take away. Learning how to grow in small spaces for the benefit of people, pocket and planet, using recycled containers, reducing food miles and packaging

The Woodland Theatre Truck

Host Clive Cobie

Clive has an inspiring and addictive way of sharing his knowledge about ways we can all protect the only planet which sustains life. Performing his own stories and poetry he ignites a flame of hope and magically shares his infectious passion.

The woodland theatre truck is a mobile art exhibition illustrating the evolution of Planet Earth. It includes multiple educational displays which encourage discussion and understanding.

Examples of linked activities are:

  • Making seed bombs – Children have fun combining compost, clay and wildflower seeds. They learn about the seeds, their growth into pollination-rich species and how they can survive even on wasteland as the native flowers flourish – and wildlife follows.
  • The Food Chain Game – Using beautifully painted containers children learn how all of nature is connected by food webs and food chains.

The Wheel of Eco Fortune

Hosts Nicola Peel and Keith Ellis from Movingsounds

This interactive activity involves children spinning a colourful wheel of topics to choose which solutions they will learn about.

It also involves a musical gameshow where the expert hosts demonstrate amazing facts and practical ideas in an inspiring and creative way so the children learn how we can all move through the eco challenges we face towards a world where everyone can thrive.

Everyone leaves feeling energised and with lots of simple, practical ideas ready to share with their families and friends and which are easy to put into action in their homes, schools and communities.

What Nature and Biomimicry Can Teach Us

Talks and activities about biomimicry by Nicola Peel, who has spent 20 years working in the Amazon immersed in deep nature, amazed at the sheer number of species encountered and what they have to teach us about materials, architecture, communication, design functions and so much more.

Input from our Youth Eco Forum (group of 14 – 18 year olds)

Subject to location and availability:

  • Guided nature walks learning about woodland and possibly foraging
  • Creative writing about nature and climate change
  • How to inspire change through stories
  • Woodwork, arts and crafts etc.

To find out more or book our Eco Float or our Roadshow please contact Carrie Cort on

Sponsorship and Donations

We welcome support from organisations who would like to work in partnership with us to build a thriving world. Please contact Carrie Cort for more information about our sponsorship package.

Learn how you can support Sussex Green Living’s environmental charitable work through raising money for us, sometimes at no cost to yourself https://www.sussexgreenliving.org.uk/home/donate/

Roadshow testimonial from Chloe Clarke Sustainability Officer, Adur & Worthing Councils

“I was aware of Carrie and the amazing work she and others do at Sussex Green Living as I’ve given a talk at one of their webinars before. I saw that they had invested in an old electric milk float and had grand plans to change it into a mobile education hub. When I saw their Eco Float had been born, it immediately brought back conversations that I’d had with our Adur & Worthing Climate Assembly Members about the type of thing they thought would be useful to engage with local residents – “some sort of pop-up stand that you could take to local events to help people understand the issues and what actions they can take”. I asked Carrie if they might be able to bring the eco station to two community events, the Bees & Seas event at Brooklands Park, and the Green Dreams Festival – both in Worthing. I felt it would really add value to the events and be something that the attendees would enjoy. 

I popped along to see Carrie and the volunteers in action at the Bees & Seas event. The Inspiration Eco Station was amazing, so much thought and time had gone into building a really engaging, interesting, useful and fun hub that attracted people to come and find out about what they could do in their homes and their daily lives to reduce their environmental impact. Carrie had also arranged for her dedicated team to bring along their ‘Bright New Future Roadshow’ with a fun spin-the-wheel-game-show-style activity that included a winning combination of getting the kids involved through movement, music and being silly, all whilst learning. The eco station provided so much more than a person on a stall handing out leaflets and gathering petition signatures (although there’s still a place for those too) and it was clear that it was a draw for lots of people attending the event. Thanks so much to Carrie and the team for coming along and for thinking so creatively about how to approach some of the toughest challenges we all face”. 

Learn more about:

Our outdoor education day and wind turbine and solar workshops here.

Our assemblies, lessons and workshops for schools here.

Feedback from the High Sheriff of West Sussex about the Bright New Future Roadshow (1 minute 41 seconds)

Feedback from Councillor Deborah Urquhart Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change about the Roadshow (47 seconds)

Or this wonderful song ‘Be the change’, it includes the lyrics. Thanks to Emily Bardon Sing Up for letting us share this video.

Roadshow partners Movingsounds share their connected show which looks at the environmental issues we face and inspiring solutions. Produced in 2010! www.movingsounds.org

Watch as these kids show what makes organic farming the choice for the future in a surprising twist on a classic children’s song. Could you school plan and present at our Roadshow something similar?

We hope that local schools will come and sing and dance at the Roadshow. How about learning the words to this song?