Do More with LESS
We had a wonderful day at the ‘Do More With LESS’ conference – LESS stands for: Leaders in Environmentally Sustainable Schools, and that is what Ashley, Amber, Steph, Rhys and Sommer are – our leaders. They gave some brilliant speeches about what our school does to be Resource Smart. Click here to read their speeches. During the day we participated in a range of activities which taught us all about renewable energy, ways we can reduce consumption in our homes, carbon and climate, as well as how energy is created and the huge losses and waste of coal power before it reaches our homes. We discussed the solutions to these problems and even had a play on an energy bike that powered different appliances such as a fan, light globes, and a kettle.
Everyone did a brilliant job at bringing a nude food lunch – we were waste free!
At the end of the day we were asked to make some action plans about what had inspired us during the day and what we wanted to implement at our school. Our ideas were inspired by 754’s veggie selling program – we thought it would be a good idea to reduce our waste by putting a veggie order form in the newsletter for parents to buy our excess produce. We also loved walking through 754’s koorie garden and thought it would be fun to plant our own edible and medicinal native plant garden, or even just learn a bit more about the plants that are growing in our own school yard.
The last plan we want to put into action is to learn a bit more about the solar panels that we have on our classroom roof.
Thank you to Bree and John who accompanied the students and me.
Rubbish Free Lunches
The Planet Protectors have decided that Wednesdays in Term 3 will be the perfect time for our Rubbish Free Lunches. Students are encouraged to bring food without packaging. Click Rubbishfree Lunch 20150720 for some more information on Rubbish Free Lunches.
Biodiversity Enhancements
Staff and students were delighted early this year to receive the news that our application for an East Gippsland Shire Grant has been successful. With the help of parents we have extended the fence-line of the frog bog area, and now we are ready to plant more vegetation kindly donated by the East Gippsland Landcare Network. Students have been busy monitoring, identifying and recording the sightings of frogs in our school grounds and have created some signs and colorful artwork to be installed at the frog bog. A community function will conclude this special project.
Frogs of Clifton Creek: Identification Key
Revegetation Audio-Visual Guide.
The students have been recording information for a selection of our
revegetation plants to produce an audio-visual record.
Information for each plant includes details such as scientific and common name, time of
flowering, benefit to birds or butterflies or other wildlife and
indigenous uses.
Damian is introducing the ‘Golden Wattle’.
Click on the plants listed to see the audio visual guides produced by students over the past eighteen months.
common correa
spreading wattle
boobialla
Newspaper article- Offsetting Carbon Emissions
The school recently planted trees at two properties – at Eagle Point and
Clifton Creek as part of the annual program to offset the school’s carbon
emissions. Follow this link to read the newspaper article.
newspaper-carbon offsets – community connections
We have a new Enviro Team.
Molly, Steph, Sommer, Cooper, Ashley, Hilary and Dave are the Planet Protectors
The Resourcesmart Schools program is a national Sustainability program. We have been registered and using this program for 7 years. The program has 5 modules to help schools embed sustainability knowledge and practices in everyday activities, in the curriculum and to spread the word to the whole school community, other schools and the wider community. We completed the CORE and WASTE modules in 2010 ( need to renew this certification this year), and completed the ENERGY and WATER modules in 2012 (renewal due in 2015). We have been planting trees on the school grounds for National Schools Tree Day for 5 years, had a year long project to install a frog bog, plus run a very active Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program, so we have commenced the Biodiversity module too.
Staff and students in all grades have been working over the first half of the year, to identify what sustainable practices we already have in place, how we can do them better, and what else we would like to do. See our School Environmental Management Plan (SEMP) 2014. The new Environment Team have made action plans from this:-
CORE ACTION PLAN,
ENERGY ACTION PLAN,
WASTE ACTION PLAN,
WATER ACTION PLAN
BIODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN
The WASTE module renewal has been completed and is waiting to be verified.
The CORE module renewal will be completed by end Term 3.
School Sustainability Vision: To conserve natural resources where possible and to consolidate sustainability/environment education as an integrated theme for K-6 curriculum. To provide leadership in sustainability education and practices in the wider community.
As part of the WASTE module renewal, all students participated in drafting a Litter Reduction plan and policy to take to school council.
Recycling at Clifton Creek
Follow this link to find out the exciting news regarding the recycling initiatives at Clifton Creek Primary School. Bev container community recycling
Environmental Policies
Follow these links to learn more about the policies put in place to help us achieve some of our sustainability goals. GreenPurchasing
