Planting Seeds of Change: Halcyon Students Transform London's Transit Spaces

G10 student Caspar reflects on volunteering with Energy Garden, where they helped transform Ladbroke Grove station's unused spaces into sustainable gardens with solar panels.

Through this environmental initiative, Caspar connected their work to global sustainability goals while contributing to a greener London.

"On Saturday the 16th, a couple of other Halcyon Students and I went to Ladbroke Grove station to Volunteer. We Volunteered for an Organisation called Energy Garden, which changes unused spaces at overground and railway stations in London by turning them into Gardens with Solar panels, to create a greener environment for daily commuters.

This organisation explores how to transform urban areas and can contribute to the installation of low carbon energy systems across other local practices in London.

We worked on the development of Ladbroke Grove Tube station’s garden, by planting bulbs of wild flowers, forest flowers and daffodils.

In spring we will see the result of our work on Saturday. Being in the Halcyon Eco Committee and exploring options of how to make our school more environmentally friendly, I was interested in this organisation because it explored how to make the whole of London greener.

The fact that it connects to two Global sustainable goals is another reason why I will be volunteering more often. Both Climate Action and Sustainable Cities and Communities are the two goals it works towards. IB learner profile attributes that I put into practice were being a communicator because I needed to communicate with the other volunteers, who would be working on which area in the garden, who had planted which flowers already and which space still needed work.

I will continue to volunteer for Energy Garden throughout the year and I would recommend it to every single student in Halcyon. The places where you volunteer are accessible, seeing as they are overground stations.

This work is very relevant due to climate change in the coming decades, us young people will be affected by it and we have no time to waste to make a positive change."