TASIS Update Autumn

Our Wildlife Club has been working hard on their Design For Change UK project. The club members thought up a positive change to benefit our school. We came up with composting! This involves bringing in a lunch time composting program to help reduce food waste in the Lower School. Besides putting the uneaten food into a compost to be reused in our school garden, we hope to bring to light that students are wasting too much food and need to put more thought into what they ask for on their plate at lunch. It is always possible at our school to go back for seconds. Therefore, we have worked to make the whole Lower School more aware of how they are eating and what they are wasting each day.The Wildlife Club members set up a meeting with our headmaster, Mr. McBrien. We asked him if our idea was one that we would be allowed to pursue. He supported us fully and gave us some ideas to help us proceed.We next set up a meeting with the chef in our kitchen. We told him our ideas and how we planned to set up the composting. He gave us lots of his own ideas, which helped us to make our plans. He also supported us fully, and this gave us the motivation to continue with our work.Two of our club members arranged a date to present a Powerpoint to the Lower School at assembly, so that they would understand what we were proposing and how we planned for it to work.We spent two days working in groups to put together our presentation. We also spent time making posters and preparing the small bins to set on tables for waste collection in the dining room. We bought a large composting bin and met with the head gardener to place it in an appropriate location in the Lower School playground area. We placed it behind some trees. It will be safe there.Each day at lunch, each table in each grade level will collect the small bin on the table after lunch is finished, and empty it into the larger bin for collection. Each grade level will also mark on a graph chart how much they have wasted. There are measurement marks on each bin. The grade level with the lease amount of waste will receive a party sponsored by our chef!Each day, Ms. Gediman will take the collected lunch waste out to the big compost bin. After several months, the compost bin outside will be emptied. This will become rich soil that can be used in our school garden to grow new fruits and vegetables!