We had a visit today from Pamela Candea from The Surefoot Effect, an organisation that helps people to work out how to live in a more sustainable way. Pam was here to talk to the whole school at assembly, and then to run a workshop, organised by Ian Malcolm from ‘Climate Friendly Aberlady’, that was open to the Aberlady Community. The school’s Sustainability Group were able to be part this workshop and we learned a little more about what a carbon footprint is, and how our carbon footprints here in Aberlady compare with those from around the world. What we heard certainly gave us lots of food for thought.
The Sustainability Group has now heard from a variety of people about what ‘Sustainabilty’ means and we have been given lots to think about! We now need to decide what work we would like to do this year to try to make our school and our community more sustainable.
Watch this space!
Today the Sustainability Group and two classes from school went to find out all about recycling in East Lothian at the Kinwegar Recycling Centre near Wallyford. P2/3 and P3/4 were visiting in connection with their topics on Global Awareness, and the Sustainability Group were there to find out how we can make sure our school – and wider community – recycle as much as possible.
Mrs Mair ferried groups backwards and forwards to the centre as only 17 people could go at a time for safety reasons. Damien and Mo (Ella’s mum and dad)were there all morning to help us.
Joe and John from the centre took us to see where bin lorries empty their waste – most of which goes to landfill – and then to see where all the sorting happens for recycling. We learned what happens to all the skipfuls of recycling that people take to the site. Did you know that glass from bottles in East Lothian can be used to make water filters for sending to countries where clean water does not just come out of a tap? Or that paper and cardboard can be recycled 7 times before it is too weak to be used again? Or that fleeces can be made from recycled plastic. (We all had a look inside Mo’s jacket! There is a big label that explains that it was made from recycled bottles!)
We all found the trip very interesting and loved watching some of the machines crushing the rubbish! Now we will be watching to make sure we all (at home and at school) make sure we recycle as much as possible. Look out for the recycling police!!
This week has been our Eco Week and as usual we have had a variety of activities through the week.
At assembly on Tuesday the school learned about the importance of reducing the waste we produce and were specifically asked to ‘Think before you WEEE’ (think before you Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment). An email about this went home asking for old mobile phones, lap tops and tablets that we could send for recycling – we would still be pleased for these to be sent in to school.
The main focus for the week has been on looking after our new Wood of Wonder, maintaining what is there, adding new features and learning to play in the space with care so that nothing gets damaged. Have a look if you’re in the playground – it is looking fantastic.
Everyone in school has now planted a sunflowers seed (in pots made by the pupils from newspaper). These will come home later in the term for planting and after summer we will ask the pupils to measure their sunflowers and bring in a photo. There will be a prize for the tallest!
The whole school have been designing art work to decorate the WOW and the outdoor sheds. These will be made from bottle tops – please keep sending all your bottle tops in for this.
The week ended today with our (now traditional!) Litter Olympics where the children played fun games using recycled materials. A huge thank you to Mr Noonan Ms De Mowbray and the Eco Committee for all their work in planning, preparing and running the event.
Today we went to the Wood of Wonder (WOW) to make our contribution to this wonderful new space. We went with materials to build a second bug hotel and to create a new tepee and weave natural materials through the existing tepee. While we were there we also took the opportunity to help with some weeding. You will see how much fun we had from the photos. Lots of problem solving was needed when we were trying to create these things and we hope everyone will enjoy using them.
The eco committee are running a competition to design a binion. A binion is a bin in the design of a minion from despicable me films. Entries must be given to a member of the eco committee by Tuesday 9th of February.
By Jack A
Aberlady Primary School, Moor Road, Aberlady, East Lothian EH32 0RQ Tel 01875 870232 Email aberlady.ps@aberlady.elcschool.org.uk
