Every month our Eco Committee and the janitor record our energy and water use meter readings so that we can monitor if we are being successful in cutting our carbon footprint. We worked out that we have managed to cut our electricity use by 6.7 % and we measured our carbon footprint using this and other data we collected. We have had problems trying to cut our gas use due to electrical faults with the school boiler system. We hope to cut our gas usage further next year.

We took part in Switch Off Fortnight this year where everyone really made a special effort to cut our energy use as much as possible. We started off with a whole school  assembly run by the Eco Committee to let everyone know what Switch Off Fortnight is and what we would be doing.

The Eco Committee also put on a play for the whole school about children in  a classroom who were fed up with all the lights and electrical items being on and the heating turned up full blast and what they did to show their teacher about global warming, and the effects on the environment. In the play, they managed to change their teacher’s ideas and the heating was turned off and electricity use cut. This was to show the school about our own situation and how they can help.  After that more children were aware of what they can do in their classrooms to make a difference.

As part of our Eco journey over the last two years we have been trying to cut our energy use at St. Albert’s Primary. Use of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas is contributing to climate change, which as everyone knows is highly damaging to the future of many species on earth including humans. The future of our planet depends on us getting climate change under control.
Fossil fuels need to be burned to release the energy in them. Burning anything releases Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide builds up in the atmosphere like a blanket round our planet trapping heat that should normally escape back into space. This is resulting in a warmer climate and more rain. More rain brings more floods which threaten coastlines and the human, animal and plant life that exists there. Scientists now think that the effects of climate change have been underestimated and sea levels could rise by 2m instead of the predicted one metre rise.
Flooding though, is only one consequence of climate change. The hotter regions of our world will face more droughts as the climate warms leading to more starvation and extinction. Weather patterns are being disrupted worldwide.
It has been estimated that by 2100 half of the world’s species could be extinct and that is due to human activity. The bumblebee is in danger due to climate change, as rising world temperatures force them to migrate northwards to survive, but at the same time, spring flowers are in bloom earlier which leaves them less time to feed and pollinate them.
Polar bears are another case and many are already suffering as the ice at the North Pole melts. Polar bears hunt from sea ice and global warming is melting their icy habitat, making it increasingly difficult to travel, hunt and raise their young. The sea ice they depend on melts earlier each spring and forms later each autumn. These are just two examples of the threats to species worldwide.

At St. Albert’s we have been trying to do our bit to cut our carbon footprint. We have appointed light monitors in each class to ensure lights and other electrical goods are turned off around the building unless they are absolutely necessary. We have been monitoring our energy and water use readings these past two years with the help of the janitor. You can see some pictures here of our Eco Committee recording energy and water readings with the janitor.

Hi,

We thought we would share with you some of our other Eco Successes from our present Eco journey over the past two years.

As you know litter is a big problem in our cities. You only have to look round the streets to realise that people still drop litter instead of taking it to the nearest bin and disposing of it properly. It makes our streets look untidy especially to tourists, and can cause other problems for the environment and animals in particular. Small creatures like mice can crawl inside bottles or jars left on the ground and be trapped there and never escape. At St. Albert’s Primary our pupils have been involved in litter picking activities for years. Classes have a rota to follow so they know when it is their turn to clean up the playground. We have litter picking kits that we use for this and pupils work in pairs to pick up the litter that others have dropped.

Every year we run at least one litter survey in our grounds to find the type and quantity of litter being dropped there. These surveys have revealed that some of the litter in our grounds is being dropped over the fence by adults, which is obvious from the type that it is e.g. beer cans. Other bits may be blown in by the wind.  Here you can see some pictures of our pupils taking part in litter picking surveys in our grounds in May 2018.

 Litter is not just a problem in our playgrounds and streets. Litter that is dropped on the streets or blown out of over-filled bins can be swept down drains, especially storm drains and ends up out at sea. This together with the litter that people leave behind on beaches is causing a great deal of damage to  marine life   all over the world. Plastic bags are often eaten by sea turtles when they are mistaken for jellyfish, sea birds have been found dead having eaten pieces of plastic and for whales it is the same story. Some of the deepest parts of the world’s oceans have been found to contain plastic rubbish.

Our Eco Committee wanted to do something to make a difference to this situation, since we were tackling Water and Litter as two of our Eco topics, and so with money they had raised through recycling old clothes with the Rag Bag company, we hired a bus to take a Primary 5 and members of the Eco Committee to Prestwick beach for the day to collect as much litter as we could. Although there did not appear to be much litter at first we weighed what we collected and the bags of rubbish came to 8 Kg. That is 8Kg that won’t be eaten by sea creatures or birds.

While we were at the beach we also took part in a nurdle hunt. What is a nurdle? Nurdles are small plastic pellets about the size of a lentil. Billions are used each year to make nearly all our plastic products and can  end up washing up on our shores. Nurdles can be spilled into our seas from industry. Nurdles can sometimes go unnoticed as they are so small but they are causing lots of problems for marine life. Nurdles can be mistaken for food by marine animals and are highly toxic since they can attract background pollutants like PCBs and DDT. These dangerous compounds can then enter the food chain.

Although we looked closely at the sand, we couldn’t find nurdles on the section of beach where we searched, but we found lots of other small pieces of plastic that could be consumed by birds.

Here you can see some pictures of our day, which everyone enjoyed. We had our lunch on the beach and played games and paddled in the sea. For some children this was their first visit to a Scottish beach. We were very lucky as the weather was glorious too.