Protect Our Planet (POP) day: Devon Waste Education team – Demelza, Alex and Sally - ran workshops for different year groups throughout the day. Years 3, 4 and 5 learned that plastic was first invented in 1907. On average, plastic takes about 500 years to break down. This means that every bit of plastic that has ever been invented still exists today (112 years on) somewhere on our planet. Children learnt about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is an island of rubbish the size of Germany, Spain and France combined. We were also introduced to many alternatives that we could use to help cut down our use of single-use plastics: bamboo toothbrushes, reusable bags, metal or paper straws, reusable wrappers rather than cling film, bamboo cutlery instead of plastic throw away cutlery, making our own natural hand scrubs, use of soap instead of soap liquid, not using wet wipes and many more.
We saw pictures of animals that have been harmed by plastic. An albatross chick had died because the chick’s parents had been feeding it plastic (this was because they did not know the difference between plastic and food). The chick had a stomach so full of plastic that it could not eat any other food and died through starvation. We saw a picture of a seahorse who had attached itself to a cotton bud. We saw a picture of a turtle, named Peanut, because it had grown into the shape of a large peanut due to it being stuck in the plastic that holds cans together. The turtle had to have an operation to help it to recover.
The children and adults in Years 3, 4 and 5 made natural hand scrubs out of household ingredients: sugar, lemon, honey, coco powder, lavender drops, oats, olive oil. The smell was fresh and the children and adults were impressed with how soft their skin was.
Our Year 2 Eco Alert group organised an activity where children bought in some plastic waste from home and they made it into something different. Hermione made her bottle into a bird feeder. Matilda got the whole school involved in learning two songs ‘the 3R’s’ by Jack Johnson and ‘Everyone Can make a change’.
Year 6 did some amazing art work of which some is displayed in the school lounge. It shows wildlife in their natural environment with stomachs full of plastics, amazing landscapes ruined by litter and plastics. Year 6 and Reception children buddied up together for part of the day to do activities together based on plastic pollution.
Year 5 reused lots of plastic to make scarecrows with our marine plastic theme. These will be entered into Devon County Show scarecrow competition.
Years 1 and 2 enjoyed a ‘Pirates against Plastic’ workshop where they were doing a treasure hunt around the school grounds and found pictures of birds and animals that needed help – a gull with fishing net stuck in its beak, a seal with a plastic bag over its head etc. They understood what damage single-use plastic is doing to our environment and talked about ways of stopping these.
The Eco Alert team did a litter pick around the school grounds and were surprised by the 4 bin bags of rubbish we found that has been dropped by our own school community.
All in all it was a very busy day and one where we all learned a great deal. It made us think about what a difference one individual can make by taking small changes and will support the further work that the Eco Alert group will be leading in school next term.