Eastbury Eco Squad 2014 update

Eastbury Comprehensive...Mission Updates

24 Jun

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We started of the year with our new year 7 recruits. They are a fantastic, enthusiastic group eager to make changes for the better. We also had a staff addition Mr S Peer our science technician, who has been a great addition to the team.For the first time Eco Squad got some exercise books and Scott led some great sessions for example life of a plant.A group of our Eco Squad also took part in a project to raise money for a local charity by setting up their own businesses. One of the key themes was the environment and involved buying products made from recycled materials and selling these on to the public, whilst also promoting an eco-friendly philosophy. The students involved used good environmental business practices. In total, the students involved raised an impressive £1,493.20, which will go to a local hospice, St Francis Hospice.We entered the borough climate challenge competition with three posters. One was a TV and computer generated by a bike. The second one was an Eco water system for our vegetable garden and the last one was a plan to make our body waste into energy. We won the competition and on Friday 27^th June members of the eco squad and travel ambassadors are attending Colchester Zoo as a reward trip for all of their hard work.The students cleaned and put instructions on 90 blue recycling boxes that we got from the council (old borough glass recycling boxes) and placed in classes that they had identified as teachers requesting paper recycling needs. Shanks collect this paper waste separately to general waste on a fortnightly programme.We held Eco week from Monday 9^th to Friday 13^th June. Throughout the week they presented in assembly to all year groups. The subjects were anti-litter, turn of the lights and bike to school to look after yourself and eat healthy. On the Friday they ran an eco-stall at both breaks to raise awareness and fundraise. There were quizzes (answer an eco-question correctly win an eco-pen) Raffles and guess the amount in a jar etc. We also had banana and rice crispy cakes for sale with some jewellery pieces they had been making for weeks. They raised £79 so were very pleased. They all decided that they wanted to adopt an animal in the wild. They wanted a UK charity and have chosen Tundra a female wolf at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust. This will be continuing in future years as the school have supported this and as the certificate is in the school name we may say she is our school mascot.Throughout the year they have worked hard on the upkeep of the veggie garden, they planted seeds and grown vegetables (not sure how it happened but we have lots and lots of peas) also tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and herbs. I am not sure what else is growing (lots of green leaves) as I said they were very enthusiastic. We are working with food tech (Katie Morgan-McNeil) in a food competition cooking a meal from what we have grown.We have entered three posters into the Weee (recycling electrical goods) poster competition. It is a Keep Britain Tidy competition that involves Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Newham. We find out at the beginning of July if we get placed. Saba Ghani won this competition last year. The winning school receives £200 to spend on Eco. We are putting together a short film on Eco week and have pictures tooPlans for the future: