National Recycling Week 8 -14th November

In 3 weeks time its National Recycling Week.

If your school needs a kick start to get its recyling program off the ground then this could be the opportunity that it needs.  Its organised by Planet Ark and they have got a few ideas to get you going.  Why not organise a Swap Party for your class, year group or even whole school.  Everyone brings in good quality clothes they don't wear and get to exchange them for ones they want.  Everyone pays a fee to enter so you could raise money for a good cause or for a school recycling program.

 This page on our website gives you a step by step guide on how to set up a recycling program in your school.

We've also got lots of resources on our website can help get it into lessons too.   In  'i change' students look at all the materials in their phones or MP3 players, how quickly they're running out and the issues around recycling them.  They then organise a schoolwide phone recycle.  If you taught this next week a collection could happen in National Recycling Week. 

That's a Society and Environment lesson (although it could easily be a science one too).  In Home Economics the Food Waste Module examines packaging.  In the 'Smart Cookie' lesson students sort packaging into recyclable or not and look at alternatives, which don't need recycling.  The whole module addresses the issue of food and resource waste (as you probably guessed from the title) and would be applicable to the week.

Or usse our recycling powerpoint to launch a poster competition at a school assembly.

So Reduce - Reuse - Recycle - and enjoy it.  I'm a bit of an opshop fiend, I am just so pleased when I find some new clothes - they're reused, but still lovely, not expensive and the money goes to a good cause and its fun finding things.  Find your way to enjoy it and get your studetns enjoying it too.

Beaches & bags

Just watch this fantastic video about the life of a plastic bag.  I know it doesn't sound good but it really is one of the best short films I've seen.

It would be a fanastic resource to use to explore issues of sustainability and waste in many areas.  I think it provides a great way in to English, very obviously media studies as the filming, imagery and story are very striking. It could also fit into religious education or philosophy as well as Society and Environment.



Here's the synopsis:

This short film by American director Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo) traces the epic, existential journey of a plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) searching for its lost maker, the woman who took it home from the store and eventually discarded it. Along the way, it encounters strange creatures, experiences love in the sky, grieves the loss of its beloved maker, and tries to grasp its purpose in the world.

In the end, the wayward plastic bag wafts its way to the ocean, into the tides, and out into the Pacific Ocean trash vortex — a promised nirvana where it will settle among its own kind and gradually let the memories of its maker slip away.

This video could be combined with a clean up.  I've just found out about the organisation Tangaroa Blue at www.oceancare.org.au.  They are focussed on cleaning up coasts, getting rid of all the plastic waste that endangers wildlife and generally makes the coast look rubbish.  They help organise clean ups across australia.  Students can take part, record what they collect and send their data Tangaroa to be included in their research projects.  Tongara Blue have also produced some teaching resoruces to go with this for schools in WA.  Contact them for the CD.  Its called Ocean Full of Plastic: marine debris education resource for WA schools.  There's a beach clean up for the SW organised for the 8th & 9th October if you want to get involved.

I've also found a podcast from Costing the Earth about this too.  Dr. Alice Roberts investigates the discovery of the World's largest plastic waste patch in the South Atlantic and asks what we can do to solve the problem of aqatic plastic.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v1qtn

Lots of links to other great resources about this issue on this page too. 

Fun and Inspiration at the Weekend

David and Skye in Action. Skye liked the dancing book.

Ingrid spreads the word. Giving away packets of coriander seeds hleped too.

We had a fantastic weekend at the Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta. Ingrid and I shared duties on our stand over the weekend, David and Skye helped me out ;) and Tundi (?), Ingrid's daughter had organised a fashion remodelling/recycling area futher up the street and had made herself a great outfit. Maybe Ingrid can post a photo?

I really enjoyed hearing how enthusiastic people were about what we are doing with Schools. You would hope they would be at a Sustainability fiesta but nonetheless people were eager to talk to us and very encouraging.  Our coriander seeds ran out and the leaflet stock was depleted. We got quite a few names on our living library list too. This is a new idea which I hope we will develop over the next few months so thank you to those that signed up, I'll be writing more to you soon.

So many people there doing great work. Shani and Tim of course for organising it all, opening their house and accomodation at the Painted Fish and generally getting people in their community on board.

Its down that way, no up that way! So many things going on it was hard to keep track.

I had some good conversations with Helen and Tim at Sustainable Energy Now. I'm impressed by their campaigning. Some good stats in their brochure....did you know that if just a quarter of homes currently supplied by synergy got a 1.5kw solar system this creates as much energy as the current coal fired power genration in WA. The friendly people at Fern community gardens opposite also signed up to our living library.

I loved the 'recycled' bikes. I've got a groovy rusty blue retro one myslef and was pretty inspired to try turning it into one that I could carry Skye in. Here's a just one of the many creations.

Guerrilla gardening was in evidence. Not sure if the chickens stay out on the verge all the time but the vegetables in the verge looked (and hopefully taste) great. So sculptural.
















I and many other people I noticed brought a rug from carpetsforcommunities.org.  Great little rugs made from recyled t shirt off cuts by women in Cambodia and all profits go directly to them. The stand was run by volunteers. I even got a photo of my rug being made. Its now cheering up our bathroom. If you're going to buy things then I can't think of a better type of enterprise to buy them from.

Loads of stuff for kids, the HotRockers to be; fairy gardens, exercise bikes to generate electricity with, music, costumes. I was really impressed by the model sustainable houses built by Year 6s. We've got a similar model building exercise as the finale to our Global Warming:Global Warning module (see the lesson 'What's the plan?). Its for slightly older students and I have to say I think its a great learning activity at any age. Really creative, allows them to express their ideas and its hands on and practical, makes a change from writing it all up in an essay.

Students from some of our schools were picking out their friends in our photos and other people were happy to find out what their old school was doing for sustainability.

I could go on and on. Can't wait till next year. I'll leave you with my favourite costume.

The footprint of the 'Nano Puff"

No they haven't discovered the footprints of a very small dragon in the snowypeaks of Tibet but in our office in blustery southwest Australia a new creature has appeared, the nano puff wearing ecoworker. And they look pretty cool really, and cosy. Samudra the organic raw food cafe and yoga centre behind which we work has started stocking Patagonia products in its shop.

Great move I think. It fits in really well with their image. Patagonia is a brand delivering high quality goods for outdoor sports, including surfing and yoga, whose philosophy started out to protect wilderness areas in Patagonia and has developed into one multi million dollar business that is trying hard to act sustainably and develop products that will have a minimal impact on the environment, be manufactured in fair labour conditions and fulfil their high spec for quality and product innovation. And they tell you all about it too. Here's the footprint chronicle for the nano puff. It shows the journey, the different environmental impacts, discusses the good and the bad and goes into detail about each stage of the manufacturing process.

You can choose different products too and dig deeper and even join an online discussion about it. I think this website could be put to excellent use with our The Big CONsumption module, showing how a product impacts along its supply chain and as a case study of a company implementing sustainable practices. You could use the shirt case study to compare it to the standard t shirt manufacture in 'What's the Cost?'. Its great for geography as a study of interconnectedness. In Business studies you could use it as an example of how a company has incorporated ecoprincples into its brand and how this allows it to charge high prices ( its otherwise known as 'Patagucci' due to its relatively high prices) by increasing its cachet and so allows it to invest in improving its supply chain and manufacturing even further.

Follow the "Footprint Chronicles" to find out about the life cyle of lots of Patagonia products. Did you know they also offer to recyle all your old patagonia products for you too?

Science sustainability resources from UPD8

UPD8 is a great website. Its got loads of curriculum and resources for science, and the lessons are really inoovative covering the usual topics in absorbing ways. I just looked at one where pupils were given the task of coordinating a car chase stunt for a hollywood movie, enabling them to learn about the relationship between speed, distance and time and inter and extraploation of graphs. On a specifically sustainability slant.....

They also have a series of lessons called climate futures. These cover energy use - which is the best present to give mum for her birthday?, eco-friendly motorbikes - write a review for a magazine, food recycling etc. You have to register to download the resources but these ones and lots of others on the site are free.

Lucy