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meet the eco-team

Article 15: Every child has the right to meet with other children and to join in groups and organisations, as long as this does not stop other people enjoying their rights.

Eco-Team is made up of children and staff (Hannah Gully and Lindsay Monk) who have volunteered themselves for the role and who have a real passion for all things eco. We have set up the team as we would like to help make our school and our planet a more eco-friendly and sustainable place. We are hoping that the work we do will help and benefit the environment and will also help us to achieve Eco-Schools status and the Green Flag Award.

We meet every Wednesday to discuss and plan events to support our school to become as environmentally friendly as possible. We learn about environmental issues through our Learn Together curriculum as well.

So far Eco-Team have:

• Conducted an Environmental Review, which we used to identify three the school’s three main areas for development:
  -Waste
  -School grounds
  -Transport
  We will focus on these three topics for two years and then conduct another Environmental Review to select another three topics.

• Written and designed an Environmental Code for the school

• Planned and delivered a number of assemblies

• Organised a bake sale to raise funds for Eco-School

• Helped clear up and maintain the school’s herb garden and flower beds

• Conducted a number of recycling surveys

• Responded to the results of the recycling surveys and put new paper, plastic, general and food waste bins in every classroom

• Organised and help run our first ever Water Festival

• Organised and help run the Big Pedal

• Made an Eco-Team display in the main reception area

Waste Week 2019

This years theme for waste week focused on plastic. In order to help the whole school focus on reducing the amount of plastic we use in our school the eco-team completed an audit at the beginning of March to see how much plastic waste there was in our bins. They then shared a message with the whole school about how we like to reduce the amount that we have found and will be completing another audit at the end of the month. The children also helped by displaying plastic fact posters around the school to invite all classes to take part in a plastic mission. By the end of the month we had reduce the amount of plastic in our bins and now hope to sustain this into next term.

The big battery hunt is on.

This week the children have made some fantastic posters that have been shared around the school encouraging everyone to take part in The Big Battery Hunt. The children have shared individual collection boxes with their classes and informed them about what they need to do. We have also put a larger collection box in our school reception. for

Water Explorer Challenge- Fresher Water

Our year three children have been focusing on becoming curious conservationists and embraced a mission into how we could clean our water. 

They discussed the crisis with many local water supplies across the world. Learning how lakes and rivers have been polluted, resulting in dirty water that can cause people to become sick. They thought about how this made them feel and wondered if their was anything they could do to make a difference. 

In groups the children talked about how they think water could be cleaned. They made lists about what materials they would need and the method they would use. After attempting some filtration they anaylised it and thought about what they could do to improve it. 

Water Explorer Challenge- Discovering secret water

Year 1 have taken on another water explorer mission. This mission sets out to find out how much secret water is in our favourite foods. Playing a game of higher or lower, they found out the amount water used in individual food. They then discussed how this made them feel and if they would feel differently the next time they ate it. Following their discussions they drew pictures of their favourite food that used the least amount of water.

Water Explorer Challenge- Discovering secret water

Year 2 took on the secret water mission that looked at investigating the water that is hidden in our clothes. Reusing and upcycling clothes is a great way to save water and to lessen the impact of water mins pollution on local communities near factories. Independently, the children created a water-saving item of clothing. They made tie-dye t shirts.

Redfield children are now Water Explorers! Water explorers encourages students aged 8-14 from 11 countries to take bold and powerful action to save our precious water through fun, interactive water saving Missions. 

Catering for different cultures, challenges and water sophistication, water explorers have created a range of challenges grouped into four Mission areas:

Precious Water – How do we save those drips, leaks and flushes?
Learn about how our everyday actions at home and at school have an impact on our local communities. Students will consider the differences between countries who have a lot of or very little water and learn why saving water means saving energy and money and is important for everyone. Through lessons and activities students will go undercover to monitor leaking taps in their building and identify where else water is being wasted at home, whether in the bathroom, kitchen or garden, before encouraging them to take action to change water-wasting behaviours through ideas on water-saving actions for their home, school and community.

Fresher Water – Would you drink from your local lake?
Learn about the importance of keeping water clean and how dirty water not only affects us, but all other life on earth. Students will investigate the impact that clean water has on biodiversity and see how dirty water can harm the land, plants and animals, through studying the quality of water in their local area and considering factors such as litter and land use. Activities will also get students to think carefully about what they should and shouldn’t put down the drain and understand the impact on infrastructure and the environment. They’ll take action by getting involved in a global monitoring programme.

Secret Water – Do you know how much water it takes to make a cup of tea?
Learn about the secret life of water and how everything from your cotton T-shirt to a piece of paper needs water to be made. Students will go behind the scenes to investigate where water is hiding across their building. They’ll be encouraged to find out what changes could be made around their home, school or building to reduce their water footprint, through reducing water use, or reusing and recycling stuff, reviewing the menu at the school canteen or analysing the water content of their clothes. Activities will also prompt students to share their findings with the wider community to reveal where water is hiding.

Global Water – How far would you walk for a glass of water?
Learn about how your use of water at home and school can affect vulnerable communities across the world, from safe access to clean water to climate change. Activities will help students to gain an understanding of the connection between clean water and health, quality of life and climate change. Students will also consider the contrast between those who have access to clean, readily available tap water and the distances that some people across the world have to travel in order to access water that is often unfit for consumption. They’ll take action to save water to help reduce the impact of climate change around the world, ensuring healthy and safe livelihoods for everyone.

Watch this space to see what the children get up to in their missions!

Eco-Team Questionnaire

As it is the start of the new year, we wanted to take the opportunity to speak to Eco-team and ask them to share their views and opinions about how things have been going! We asked all the children to complete a questionnaire. This contained the following questions.

• Do you think we are improving our school waste? If no, what could we do better?

• Do you think we are making improvements to develop our school grounds? If no, what could we do better?

• Do you think we making improvements to our focus on transport? If no, what could we do better?

• Are you happy as a Eco-team member?

• Do you think we promote the Eco-team enough? If no, how could we improve this?

• Are you happy to continue your role as part of the Eco-team?

As a result the children came up with some fantastic ideas to continue improving our three focus areas. They also spoke very highly of their role and are keen to continue representing Redfield’s Eco-team.

ANOTHER HUGE CONGRATULATIONS!

Silver award!

 Congratulations to everyone is has contributed to us achieving our silver award!

New Recycling Posters

To help everyone at Redfield use our new recycling bins effectively, Eco- club have visited each class and presented them with our helpful new recycling posters.

Introducing our newest members of Eco-Club

 We have some exciting new members of eco club to introduce.

From year 1- Mabli & Lyra

Year 2 – Minnie & Poppy (absent from photo)

Year 3 – Laura & Ayuub

Year 4- Aurelia, Freddie, Sam, Isla.

 We also want to take the opportunity to say a massive thank you to all our previous members and all their hard work!

Meeting with caretaker Ray

Eco-Team met with our school’s caretake, Ray. We wanted to get his views on recycling in our school (especially after we put new bins in place last year) and find out if we the Eco-Team and the school could be doing more to help. Ray has said he thinks the new bins are great and the school is starting to recycle more effectively. However, we could help him and the cleaning staff more by:

•Ensuring we take the food bins outside every break time

•Going to each class and explaining what can and cannot go into each bin

•Setting up a cardboard drop-off point as cardboard cannot go into paper bins

•Meet with Ray next term to see if the changes we have made have helped.

Travel Tracker with living streets

A HUGE WELL DONE

A huge well done to Eco-Team who have helped Redfield achieve the Eco-Schools Bronze Award. We are very close to achieving the Silver award too!

A big eco-thankyou

A huge thank you to these wonderful children for all their hard word over the last year with Eco-School. You have achieved so much and have put in so much effort. Two members of this team will remain on the new Eco-Team to support the new children joining.

World oceans day 8/6/2018

For World Oceans Day this year Eco Team lead some activities throughout the day to educate others about the dangers of plastic in ocean. We also held a Water Festival to engage children in the day. In our Water Festival we tried to save fish from plastic, reuse clothes to make a patch work blanket and we had activities that looked at the amount of water that goes into the production of different materials and food. We also raised £89 for Project Ocean. 

The Big pedal 2018

This year we are participating in Sustran's Big Pedal. It starts on Monday 23rd April

and will finish on Friday 4th May. The Eco-Team planned and delivered an assembly

to the whole school to promote the challenge. The aim is to try and get at least 15%

of the school cycling or scooting to school. The Big Pedal aims to encourage more

families to leave the cars behind and duct of the books and scooters. Here are some

Going for green

Eco Team bake sale

The Eco Team had their first Bake Sale to raise money to spend on developing the school grounds. They raised £100, thank you to all of you who bought cakes!