Green Council look at our school air quality by studying trees!

Today, we had a special visitor to Green Council.
Bike it Ray came with a lot of interesting chart about different animals, poo, and lichens.  He told us that lichens grow on trees and bricks and can tell us a lot about the air quality in our area.

We went for a nature walk to see what we would find in the bottom playground. We were very excited to see lichen on the trees and Bike It Rays said that although there is more to do, the lichens we saw were a healthy green colour and indicate that our air quality is not bad for our infants.  Hooray!

Here we are studying a tree. Do you know what type of tree it is? (clue: the colour is silver!)

Clean Air Day 2019

Today at Green Council we decided to raise awareness by making large letters spelling out "Clean Air Day"

As we know it's very important to celebrate the air we breathe in and out, we had a go at Ink Blowing to create our letters.  We all had a great time trying to make patterns and mix the ink.

What do you think?

Have you made any pledges for Clean Air Day?

The Great Shirley Warren Switch Off

Have you seen the poster outside the school about the Shirley Warren Switch off?

Zaki from the Environment Centre kindly came in and told us about it.

It is happening tomorrow, Friday, from 4-6pm at the Action Centre (church), 117 Warren Crescent,  just near the school.
There will be prizes including torches and a multi cooker.
The event is free to attend so anyone can come along.
There will be inflatables and a slow-cooked meal which is also free.
There will be energy companies there giving advice too, and a parent session from 2-4pm.

At 5.30pm all the prizes will be given and there will be a big switch off with glow sticks.
Nearly 100 people went last year, so please come along and make this year's session even better.

At Shirley Warren Primary and Nursery School we do care about the environment and we hope you will join in too.

For more information please click here:
http://www.shirleywarren.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/SWWT-BigSwitchOff-Info-pack.pdf

National Clean Air Day

Just before half term, we had a special visitor come to Green Council to let us know about an initiative that Southampton City Council are promoting on Thursday 15th June.

Zaki Mahfoud, Energy Advisor at the Environment Centre (tEC) discussed with Green Council the problems of pollution. His tips were:

* Walk away from the edge of the pavement and cars, that will reduce pollution
* Use roads with less traffic on them
* Take the bus
* Avoid busy roads when you’re outside and playing
* Keep windows closed when there’s traffic

We agreed to tell other children about this in an assembly, which we did yesterday. We also agreed to let people know on this blog.


Zaki is also part of a local community group to try and help be part of the solution.  The website for the group is http://www.shirleywarren.org.uk/ He says that there will be a litter pick in Shirley Warren this Saturday (10th June) 1-3 p.m., starting at the Greenway on Warren Avenue (the Winchester Road end). All materials will be provided. There will be some cake and nibbles in the Ice House pub on Warren Avenue afterwards.

Thank you Zaki for coming into our school and we hope we can all play our part in National Clean Air Day.

Eco Club and their Green Fingers

We are proud to have a school where we look after the environment and this afternoon there was a super sight on our sunny school grounds.

Eco club had come to do some weeding on the bottom playground.

Can you spot what they are wearing to keep safe?

When you come to school tomorrow, have a look and see if you can see the difference around this tree near reception.  If you want to join Eco club it's after school and run by Mrs Bedwell.

Switch Off Fortnight in 2D

Over the last two weeks, we've taken on a challenge given to us by our awesome Green Council. They have asked us to think of ways that we could save energy for Switch Off Fortnight.

We started by making a list of things that we could switch off to save energy. We came up with lights, Christmas lights, water, computers, iPads and our whiteboard. We then had to make sure that as a class we were all trying to keep these things switched off, but also switching them off properly so we didn't damage any equipment! But how?

We decided to have three Switch Off Monitors a day. Our first one was always AC, our Green Council Rep, as he was an expert! Then we chose two more a day, Their job was to spot people switching things off properly and at a sensible time. If they spotted someone, that person got a sticker!

Here are some photos of us being awesome and switching things off properly. Well done 2D!

Green Council Trip to Aldermoor Farm and Newlands School

Today Green Council had a day trip to the farm and then Newlands School.

First we visited Aldermoor Farm, and we made history by being the first school trip to visit the farm since Richard took it over in April 2014 to be a farm for the community - a co-operative. We found out you can pay £1 to be part of the co-operative.

We had a great time doing fun things like feeding the chickens, but farmer Richard also put us to work shovelling wood chips to make a new planting area.

After that, we went to visit Newlands School to see the amazing work their Eco Club has been doing this year.  We had a tour of the school and also got to go out to play with the children, which was very exciting.

Thank you to Richard at Aldermoor Farm and Sam at Newlands for helping us to have a fabulous time.

The Environment Centre Green Council Challenge!

Green Council were very excited to have a visitor to speak at our meeting today.

Christabel is from The Environment Centre and she came to tell us about a project she is running in Shirley Warren. She is looking at how people can use less electricity so that they can be more Green.

She asked us to imagine that we were not just the Green Council for Shirley Warren but for our local area.  What would we change?

First we played the "Earth and Spoon" game. we had to pick up litter and tidy up the city Christabel had brought in. We also had to return the animals to their habitat.

Next we had a poster to colour and decorate to show how we would like to see improvements in our local area.

If you want to find out more about the project, you can look at www.environmentcentre.com which has all of the contact details.

Thank you, Christabel.

Green Council Update

We wanted to tell you a little bit about what we do in Green Council and also to ask for your help!

Green Council has 2 reps from each year group - a boy and a girl - who are chosen by their classes to represent them at Green Council meetings.

"We get lots of visits from people, eg the police, Bike It."
"We want to keep the school eco friendly."
"We talk about how we can make our environment a better place."
"We go on trips."
"We talk about important things".
"We get to vote for Good Egg"
"We tell people about things, to learn about new things in the school."
"We sort things out if people are being mean to people."
"We talk about things that need fixing."
"At break time, some children like to play pretend fighting, you can say to them stop."

We would also like to ask for your help in keeping our community and school clean.

Come and see us if you have any ideas or questions.

From Mrs Williams and the Green Council

Clean for the Queen!

Today, 5 members of the Green Council were chosen to help make our school look beautiful by picking up some of the litter outside the school gates.

This was part of a national initiative called Clean For The Queen, in honour of Her Majesty's 90th birthday in June.

We were joined by two of our local councillors - Satvir Kaur and Hannah Coombs - and we found that there was a lot of aluminium cans in the hedgerow, as well as banana skins and other litter.

Thank you for coming to help us!

We are all going to try and remember to put our litter in the bin.

Thermal Imaging - Fun but important

Today Green Council had a very special visitor - Cathy from the Schools Energy Project.

She had come in before in January to talk to us during an assembly and then today she came for a follow up visit to Green Council.  She showed us where the hot and cold spaces were in our school

Can you see where the hot and cold parts are in these pictures?

We talked about turning lights off, closing windows and doors at break time.

Then we will save lots of money - and the planet!!!

Thank you Cathy for your advice!

Every child was sent home with a room thermometer. Where have you put yours?

The New Eco Bunny Mascot

We had a competition to create a new Eco mascot.  Anyone in school could enter a design for the mascot.  Then we had a Green Council meeting and decided which one should be made.  We saw a lot of designs and after lots of discussion and a thorough look we decided to go for the Eco friendly bunny.

After the winning mascot was designed, the Green Council Team went to IKEA to find some of their recycled materials to make the Eco Bunny.  IKEA usually give their leftover material to the scrap store but they kindly offered us some for our mascot!  We got some cotton and some for a green cape. 

Our lovely Mrs Williams kindly made the real Eco mascot. She made 2! Now they are in school so that they can be given to which class is the most Eco that week by turning off the taps, making sure the lights are off, that the whiteboard is off if not being used and that the computer is on the home screen or off.

Teachers, remember that Eco check is now on a Tuesday lunchtime and that if you're not being Eco friendly you have been warned by the Green Council!!

By a Green Council member, Year 6

Green Council trip to IKEA and St Dents Eco Warriors

On Monday 30th March, Shirley Warren's Green Council drove to IKEA to talk about being eco friendly. Then we went to St Denys school to meet their Eco Warriors!

What we found out was amazing!  we learnt a lot about how IKEA saves the environment.  Katie, who was our tour guide, showed us around and told us her secret about this table in the picture.

Instead of using lots of wood, they used short planks of wood and made the rest with air.  This saved more trees in the rain forests.  Not only does it save the trees, it helps animals and their habitats.

After a delicious lunch at IKEA, we went to St Denys School and met their Eco Warriors, who showed us around their school and told us how they stay Eco friendly.  When we were in the kitchen they told us about the TetraPak recycling, which was for anyone in their community.

They would like to come to our school and see how we help the environment in our community.

By a Year 6 Green Council member.