TASIS Autumn Update
On the 23rd of January, 19 students from our Wildlife Club attended the Design For Change conference at Ashley Primary School in Walton-on-Thames. The theme of this conference was “What Would You Do With £10.” As well, this was an opportunity to share work our students have already been taking part in.We shared one project we had completed and one that we are presently working on. As well, we took part in sharing ideas for our next projects!Our completed project was where we asked the Lower School students to stop wasting so much paper by using both sides of all paper before it is recycled. We explained to the teachers and the students in the Lower School that they could halve the paper that ends up in the recycling bin just by doing this easy task. We placed posters up around the entrance to the dining room, and wrote a letter to the teachers. As well, we spoke at an assembly to explain why this would be beneficial to everyone!Our second project involves cutting down on food waste in our dining room. We noticed that each day, students clear off their tray after eating lunch, often throwing away untouched good food! We realize that we need to educate our fellow students to make it clear that they only want enough food put onto their plates that they feel they will be able to finish. All students are allowed to come back to the food lines for seconds! We also realize that we need to make the kitchen servers aware that they often place portions that are too big on student’s trays.We are presently working on setting up appointments to talk to our headmaster, our Lower School head, and the head of the kitchen. We will present our thoughts to them about this problem of food waste. We would also like to find a way to separate food waste that can be put into a bin in the dining room and then put onto a compost area. We are working on finding out how we can accomplish this. We already have a compost area in our big walled garden, but we will need a separate one for the food waste. This is a challenge, but we will work on trying to solve this!Our club members have put together an amusing short video to show at an assembly soon. This video is acted out by our club members and points out what is actually happening each day in our dining room. Then, solutions are shown that could help right away!As well as our work on our projects we had been working on before the Design For Change conference, we now have three new challenges that we thought up on the day of the conference. One group is designing a puppet show to present to the Lower School to make them more aware of being thoughtful in how they use resources at school, a second group is writing a book to be sold that brings to light the issues of the urban wildlife that must share their homes with us, and a third group is growing vegetables and fruits to sell at our school Mayfair in May. These students were asked to sign a pledge to put these ideas into action! We are very busy these days!!
