We Had Visitors

 

The Gippsland ResourceSmart AuSSI Vic Consortium visited Poowong Consolidated school on Wednesday the 6th of November to be educated about what a ResourceSmart school looks like. The Consortium was very impressed by the student Green Team presentations, of the sustainability achievements of the school.

The students presented many initiatives and facts about how they have made a difference to their school environment. Some include introducing regular nude food days, reducing the amount of paper used through emailing the weekly newsletter, recycling paper, placing icecream containers under the taps, weekly collection of data about the number of students participating in bring nude food. Many more examples were presented that demonstrated a culturally aware school making a big difference in how they manage their resources.

The Consortium members were also very impressed with the dedication shown by the sustainability coordinator, Jason Horton who has enthused the whole school to adopt more sustainable practices, supported by the Principal and staff to work together to make Poowong Consolidated school an example to other schools about what can be achieved through leadership,commitment and a whole of school approach. Well done and congratulations on your wonderful achievements.

 

National Nude Food Day

At our school we encourage students to participate in Nude Food Day every Tuesday. During term three each grade was challenged to record their nude food data. This was done via an online survey. Each time they recorded their information they received some points. Only one point was calculated based on who had nude food as we understand that not everyone has influence over what goes into their lunch box. This makes it fairer and encourages those that don't usually participate. At the end of the term during assembly Mr Horton announced the winners. It was a close competition with all grades not only improving their participation rates but also their awareness of rubbish generated by packaging. 

The preps were the overall winners and took home the prize of a pedal operated compost bin for all the compost that the chooks don't like to eat such as orange and mandarin peel, banana skins and kiwi fruit skin. They also received a nice young nude food tree which they get to plant in the garden. In time this tree will produce a bountiful crop of while mulberries - yum.

Wednesday the 16th of October was National Nude food day. The Green Team voted that the school should have a walk in - walk out rubbish day. That meant all of our bins were locked up for the whole day and any rubbish bought to school had to be taken home again. The teachers had to talk about how students would think about their rubbish as simply putting it in their pockets wouldn't be a good idea. We have a school rule do not returning into the buildings during play times so they couldn't put it back in their bags after they have finished eating. Some grades opted for eating inside, others chose to take their wrappers off before going outside. The day created a lot of discussion and hopefully will contribute to discussions at home as well.

Energy to share - It's Electric

Earlier this week we received some fantastic news. The school was notified that we were successful in our Energy Efficiency Grant Application.

A few months ago we worked on writing an application to secure some funds to upgrade our school facilities to better improve our energy consumption. We were required to obtain quotes for an energy audit which is to be conducted to determine how the energy grant money would be best utilized. An inventory of energy using equipment was created and forwarded to the accredited auditors and they provided us with an indicative quote. This grant will allow for this audit to occur and as a result of the audit the money will action some of the recommendations from the audit.

With up to $10,000 awarded to the school, we are excited about the possibility of upgrading our facilities and improving our energy efficiency.

The next AussiVIC Resource Smart Module for us to undertake is the Energy Module which is very apt given our recent good news. Additionally our new program facilitator Heidi Hamm has a lot of knowledge and expertise in the area of energy so we will be expertly supported in the next stage of our sustainability journey.

Enviroweek Magic

 

We were very busy during Enviroweek. Each grade put in measures to reduce paper to see if we can beat the Tree Hugger Challenge of saving more than 2 reams for the year. We thought that that challenge was very achievable but little did we know how amazing our results would be. Each morning paper counts were taken on our two photocopiers and then we graphed our results. On average we normally use 750 pages per day which is shown as a red line on the graph. For enviroweek you can see that each day we have dramatically reduced our paper usage except for Thursday.

At assembly the students were asked to discuss why we might use more on a Thursday and they made the connection with Thursday being the school newsletter day. Students suggested that we could email the newsletter to parents instead. The school has previously informed the school community of the availability of the newsletter electronically and a few families have taken up this option.  We will continue to encourage more families to sign up for an electronic newsletter.

 

At the end of each day the rubbish and the paper was collected from each room. Almost every classroom had put in place a way of separating the paper waste from the normal rubbish. By the end of the week we collected one 240L bin full of paper that would normally go to land fill.

 

You would have to agree that our efforts sound amazing. But it doesn't stop there. During assembly our savings were demonstrated by members of the Green Team. Two very strong girls stood out the front holding the reams of paper that we used for the week and the reams of paper that we saved for the week. Those reams weigh a lot and holding a week's worth of paper requires real strength. We used 3.96 reams and saved 3.54 reams.

If you looked at that in terms of what we could save in a year it is very impressive. Even at half of the figure of 141.5 (around 79 reams) that is amazing but if we were to save 3.538 reams a week during a 40 week school year we would save 141.2 reams of paper.

 WOW

Of course this is based on the exceptional paper use data from Enviroweek but still it is an indicator of what is possible if everyone comes on board. This information will be presented to school council on the 4th of September. Hopefully the school council will see the significant savings and benefit in  encouraging our school reduce it's paper usage and recommend a goal for us to work towards. Even a 25% reduction of our paper usage will be achievable and a significant savings.

Additionally the collection of paper for reuse and recycling will reduce what we send to land fill by 40 bins per year. That is 9.6 cubic meters of landfill that we can recycle. Based on these figures and future predictions the school will investigate more cost effective and efficient ways of collecting and recycling paper. This will begin with making sure each classroom has facilities to collect scrap/waste paper for recycling.

Here are some pictures of the Green Team checking how much paper we collected for the week.

Enviroweek Challenge

This year our school has singed up to the Cool Australia Enviroweek challenges. The Green Team have chosen to become Tree Huggers. Well of course when you come to our school you won't see the trunks of all our trees covered in students (although I know how much they do love playing down in our forest), what you will see are grades trying to reduce the amount of paper they use in the classroom.

Cool Australia have created a fact sheet on the challenge. You can find it here.

 We are currently using more than 2.5 reams of paper per student per year (including art stock). We hope to reduce this even further. Our challenge is to improve on Cool Australia's challenge of saving 2 reams of paper per year. I know we can smash that.

National Tree Day

At the beginning of 2012 our school undertook some renovations to the north side of the main building.  After the completion of the renovations we were lucky to have four larger classrooms that were not only a great learning space they were also better designed with the addition of the eves and smaller windows. This made for much better climate control during summer. Unfortunately these renovations meant that the established gardens that were there had to be removed to allow for the expansion of the four classrooms. This year as part of National Tree Planting Day 4 new Crepe Myrtles were donated to the school to replace those that were removed. Although these trees are not natives to Australia they are an ideal choice as they are deciduous which is good for the winter months and also provide some shade during summer.

These trees were presented to the school during Assembly and then were planted by the Green Team. Several people have commented about how much they like the trees.

Nude Food

Following our whole school theme on Sustainability we introduced a Nude Food day at school as a recommendation from one of the grades that investigated food. Previously we haven't recorded whole school participation in these events.

This year when we relaunched our Nude Food Tuesdays we decided to record our results as a whole school. At first this was done by the teacher doing a quick survey of their class on a scrap piece of paper. We found that there wasn't any incentive for the students or the teachers to participate in Nude Food Tuesdays.  Often both the students and teachers would forget or they would be too busy to do it. At one of the assemblies Mr Horton reminded the students about Nude Food and being sustainable. This inspired a few more students and encouraged some to remind the teachers to record the data. Following this Mr Horton decided that we should all get more active in Nude Food Tuesdays. He came up with an idea to make sure the data was collected and encourage participation. He created an online survey using Testmoz and then assign points to the completion of each question on the survey. This was introduced to the students on the 21st of July. As you can see by the data below this really sparked interest in the event and our data is looking great. Initially it was thought that points could be assigned to the amount of people who participated by having nude food. On reflection of this idea it was considered not to be ideal as many children do not have control over what their parents purchase and pack for their lunches. So to be fair to all children and each grade the emphasis was put on collecting the data. Hopefully over time with the release of the data in the school community showing the whole school and individual class breakdown the number of students who participate by having nude food will increase.

In October the school will participate in National Nude Food day and the Green Team are preparing activities and events for this day. Keep reading our blog for our improvements and adventures.

Teacher Professional Leave - TPL

This year three of our teachers have been given an opportunity to undertake TPL. One of the Teachers, Jason Horton, is using his TPL to continue the great work that has been done at the school in the area of Sustainability.
 
He is currently investigating the impact of peer influence and personal attitudes towards students' involvement in sustainability issues and activities. This study will lead to implementing sustainability throughout the whole school curriculum, linking it to the AusVELS curriculum standards. Jason is hoping that as a result of his study and investigations that he will be able to use the school Core Values as a starting point for sustainability teaching.
 
The School Core Values are Community, Relationships, Communication and Respect.
 
Jason has identified that to be sustainable, individuals need to have active values which include:
Fairness
Generosity
Sharing
Empathy
Compassion
& Safety

Combined with the school values Jason will work with two small groups of children enhancing these values and their sustainability awareness. He believes that if more time is spent on developing student values the more successful and worthwhile sustainability practices will become.
 

His investigations will be based on the Evidence Inquiry Cycle which will be combined with the e5 Instructional Model. He is supported in this undertaking by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development EdPartnerships TPL Support Team, TPL Support Group comprised of over 20 other teachers undertaking TPL, School Staff in particular Brendan Hodge and Angela Smith who are also completing TPL, Principal Leonie Anstey and importantly the students who are always enthusiastic towards their learning.

In the past Jason has undertaken studies in Teaching for Sustainability in Malmö, Sweden. Here he considered local and global challenges for sustainable development and developed knowledge of environmental problems and ecological, social and economic perspectives of sustainability. His course included theoretical knowledge of teaching and learning, practical knowledge and teaching skills. During his studies he had to collaborate with students from across the globe to understand economic issues related to local problems, he visited schools in Sweden to gain and understanding and to discuss with the students how School Representative Councils are vital important in being sustainable. He also worked with students from an International Baccalaureate School - Bladins,

to develop an understanding of the crisis in Darfur. The students developed a perspective of the lives of children their own age living in Darfur and compared that to their own lives and developed presentations around what they learnt about Darfur.


 
 

 

The Amazing Race and Master Chef

What do you get when you combine 120 students, Sustainability, The Amazing Race and Master Chef?

You get students actively involved in learning!

When the school embarked on a whole school theme of Sustainability in 2011 we wanted everyone to actively participate in further developing a sustainable school. The school decided it would have a whole school assembly once a fortnight to to talk about sustainability and participate in activities that would help them learn about sustainability.

One of those assemblies was about rubbish. Each class looked at the rubbish produced over a one week period, and sorted it in terms of recycling, reuse and land fill. As a result students initiated a weekly nude food day and encouraged each other to bring as little rubbish to school as was possible.

Another assembly had students taking part in the Amazing Race. Each Green team member became a leader and took 11 other students on a journey around the school to complete sustainability challenges. At each station a teacher guided them through the activity and when completed they were given a clue for their next location. They would also get a letter at each station at the end of the rotations they need to use the letters to complete a sentence.

The a Amazing Race challenges were:

Transport - Use the available materials to create a walking school bus that all members of the team can use safely to complete the race. Resources: skipping ropes and hoola hoops.

Landfill - match pictures of waste products with labels that show how long each item takes to break down when put in landfill. Resources: CERES Biodegradable activity cards.

Reuse - Invent a practical way of reusing three objects. You must be able to show or describe that the new use can be used more than once. Resources: Objects from recycling bin.

Reduce - List 5 ways that we can reduce the carbon footprint of the school. You may need to consider our use of water, electricity, gas, paper, food, and gardens so that we can become more sustainable. Resources: paper and pencils.

Energy - Create a wind turbine to capture the wind's energy. Each member is to keep this with them for the rest of the race. Resources: Windmill master sheet, straws, scissors, straws, glue and a hole punch.

Food - Give each of the displayed food a rating for taste, price, packaging and distance travelled and determine which food is most sustainable. Resources: Tiny Teddies in packets, Carrot and dip, chocolate bananas, pencils and paper.

Compost - tip out the objects in the compost bucket to select which items would be needed to make good compost for the garden. Resources: Compost bucket and laminated cards with random objects printed on them.

Worms - in the garden find three living worms. Resources: garden, hand trowels, gloves and worms (hopefully already in garden)

Household energy - play the interactive game to reduce the household energy use. Resources: computers with Internet access and website www.olliesworld.com/adventure/onlinegames/energy-saving-game.htm

Chickens - Observe the eggs in the incubator. Find out the temperature in the incubator, the number of eggs and how many days it takes to hatch a chicken. Resources: incubator, fertile eggs, pencils and observation sheet.

It was a great way for students to get active in sustainability and learning. It was also very fun.



To look at wise water usage students undertook the master chef challenge. Each Green Team member led their group through a challenge that required then to think carefully about the way they used water. This "Master Chef Challenge" required students to collect exactly 1 litre of water using a 1.25 litre container, one 750ml container and a bucket containing 2 litres of water.

Once they have accurately measured 1 litre the team trades that water for 700ml of milk. That milk was to be used in making an instant pudding.

Once they have made the pudding they had to use the remaining litre of water to complete the following:
All members wash hands
One member to brush their teeth
Water a plant
Wash the dishes
And one member is to have a drink

The team had to work out the order to complete these activities.

At the end each team was to present the remaining water to the judges. The judges would measure how much useable (judge will drink the cleanest) water is remaining. Team that have completed all tasks and has the most clean water left would be the winners.

This activity was quite a spectacle particularly watching the students when they realized that the person brushing their teeth spat back into the clean water ( obviously no one was going to drink that water!)

Combined with the introductory stats about water use in Australia, the students were challenged to re-think their own water use.

Green Team

Each year the school selects students to participate in the Green Team. In 2011 the Green Team went to CERES and were inspired to  challenge grades to investigate a particular aspect of sustainable living as a whole focus. The challenges were as follows:

Preps and Grade One - We want you to find out as much as you can about raising chooks. What do you need to keep them happy and healthy?
We also want you to find out about how to have healthy soil for our garden beds that will give plants the nutrients that they need to grow really well.

Grade Two - We want you to find out about your energy and water usage at home.
We also want you to find out about the waste that is created at home.

Grade Three / Four - We want you to find out about food - How much energy is needed to produce different foods, how do farming practices and food production impact on our environment? What is the food chain and what happens if something effects it?
We also want you to find out about packaging of different foods and what it does to our environment.

Grade Four / Five - we want you to research waste and how it affects our environment. This could include household waste and industrial waste.
We also want you to find out about causes of pollution and what needs to be done to address this problem.

Grade Five / Six - We want you to research energy. This may include finding out about non-renewable and renewable energy sources.
We would also like you to find out about how various practices in our daily life impact on the amount of energy that is used.

This year's (2013) Green Team has been combined with the School Representative Council (SRC). It is the first time that we have had members from all year levels participating in the Green Team. The team will be involved in promoting sustainability through out the school and are planning some whole school activities to do in term 4. The senior members of the team are also trained to enter data into the SETS program to monitor the schools resource usage.