Over the past year and a bit we have been working hard learning all about the environment and how to protect it! We have also been learning about our own health and wellbeing and how to look after ourselves. Let us take you through our journey…

After a initial audit, using the Eco schools evaluation materials, we chose 3 Eco- School Topics: Waste minimisation, Food and the Environment and Good Health and Wellbeing. Let us tell you a little bit about each of these!

Waste Minimisation

We re-used cardboard, paper, egg cartons, juice cartons, newspapers, plastic bottles, pizza boxes and more to carry out STEM projects: Egg drop experiment, cable cars, bird feeders, bridges, marbles and foosball tables. It was fun building everything and the egg drop was challenging!

We have re-cycling bins in school to recycle plastic, tins, cardboard and paper! We plan to put a general waste bin outside to help reduce litter in our playground. We have a RAG BAG bin for people in the community to recycle old clothes.

Last session we were composting food and garden waste to create soil for our garden. We used this for growing potatoes, strawberries, garlic and mint in our raised beds. When preparing our beds we put seaweed over top to help our soil!

Cormac and Fergus

Food and the Environment 

Last session we grew pumpkins, tomotaoes, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce in our polytunnel. To take care of these we had to water regularly, remove any weeds and harvest the food when it was ready. In our raised beds we grew garlic, peas, mint and potatoes. I took my garlic home! We used the mint to make mint tea! During our one planet make we used our ingredients to make a soup! Alasdair loved it and took some home! For our picnic people from our local community donated local ingredients and baked goods! The brownies and scones were tasty! We used local apples and brambles to make our own pie! As part of our Climate change topic we learned about food miles- when food travels a long distance it can go bad and car fumes (to transport it here) will be releasing carbon dioxide which is harmful for the environment. We have 2 compost bins in our garden which we will use to grow again next session! We make soil and re-use it; it helps our plants grow.

Ruairidh and Cian 

Health and Wellbeing

Every Thursday we take part in Messy Play. It is fun and relaxing. We made up our own recipes for some of the sensory materials we were working with. We wrote recipes lava lamps, play doh, foam and bubbles, slime and snow. It gives us positive experiences. In the mornings we do some mindfulness colouring. It’s fun- I like using the same 3 colours. I find it calming and I like drawing and colouring. Each morning of last session we did movement. We both liked just dance! Sometimes we did the daily mile. One day we went to visit horses and got to pet them. We would like to do more walks for our daily mile! We have been learning about growth mindset. It makes us feel more positive about our work and it makes it easier. We have learned there is no ‘can’t’, only ‘can’t yet’!

Isabella and Alasdair

Overall

Overall, we have learned about the importance of being kind to ourselves and our environment and we will continue to make small changes to achieve this!