Earth Week 2024

We have had a fantastic week in school, celebrating Earth Week. While this is a great opportunity to think about ways we can help our planet and become aware of ways in which we can help it, Earth Day is so much more. It’s putting these practices into our everyday life and making sustainable choices going forward. We have celebrated 6 amazing children from around the world this week in our morning check-ins, lunchtimes have been bustling with different activities on offer, such as junk modelling and seed planting and Monday saw amazing costumes and colour in our dress up day. The end of the week finishes with the atrium full of dioramas, showing the habitats of endangered animals.

The battle with plastics on our planet is ongoing. The theme of Earth Day 2024 is 'Planet vs Plastics' – how much plastic is being produced & how can we reduce this. Did you know that more than 500 billion plastic bags—one million bags per minute—were produced worldwide last year, with many of the bags having a working life of just a few minutes. In the US alone, 100 billion plastic drink containers, such as bottled soft drinks, were sold last year. Another major contributor to the problem we face is the fast fashion industry, which uses a great deal of plastic in different kinds of garment and wrapping clothes in. This industry produces over 100 billion garments annually. In our modern society, people now buy 60% more clothing than 15 years ago, but each item is kept for only half as long. Most of these products end up in landfills or incinerators, with only 1% being recycled. In assembly this week, we looked at how we can help reduce the amount of plastic we use. Some of the ideas given by students included:

Not using plastic bags for fruit and vegetables at supermarkets – either use nothing (if you can) or mess / fabric bags.
Using metal water bottles – make sure you take your bottle with you when you go out, so you don’t need to buy a drink.
Get metal straws and take them with you to restaurants. Tell the restaurants you don’t want plastic straws!
Don’t use plastic disposable knives and forks. Try to use the wooden alternatives or normal metal ones.
Find shops which offer you the opportunity to refill containers of food (such as nuts), rather than buying things in bags.
 

Here are some thoughts from our students:

Vlada (Year 5) “I am looking forward to the seed planting on Friday.”

Dasha (Year 3) “I think it is important that we appreciate our planet.”

Lidi (Year 5) “I liked the check-ins – thinking about other children who have made a difference.”

Noe (Year 2) “I liked the nature art and drawing in 2 Sky classroom at lunchtime.”

Harry (Year 6) “I liked the check-in presentations in the mornings.”

Won (Year 2) “I loved making my Red Panda diorama. I learnt that they eat bamboo.”

Don’t forget the sustainable uniform sale on next week (Tuesday 30th April), it’s just one way that you can help.

Happy Earth Week!

Junior and Mini Changemakers