Sustainable Schools Program

Overview of our school's approach to sustainability: December 2009:

At Eltham North we commenced our Sustainable Schools journey over six years ago. Initially partnerships were developed with CERES, Nillumbik Council and Edendale Farm. We commenced the process of attaining milestones using: expert advice, grant funding and support of the school and wider community. Since attaining our fifth star, we have continued to implement all four components: Water, Waste, Energy and Biodiversity, through educational, practical and community activities.  Our dedication to continuous improvement, has led ENPS to develop infrastructure that caters for SS to be incorporated into integrated units of work at all levels. SS is an identified focus in our four-year plan (AIP). A SS School Improvement Team implements a yearly action plan and reviews our practices and activities. Communication in many forms (presentations, murals, signage, photo’s, assemblies, PD sessions, website articles) is an essential element of this program.

Students engage in a diverse range of learning experiences to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours to make informed decisions about their impact on the environment.

The following quotes reveal some of their responses:

“Our school is involved in this program to reduce greenhouse gases so that we can have a healthy environment to live in.” Ruby and Gabriel  

“If we learn it now we can apply the skills so we continue doing it and teach other kids so that they can help and our future is cleaner.”   Georgia and Caitlin

“So you learn to be sustainable everywhere else and not just at school.” Tareq

“We’re learning how to save water and energy, reduce our waste and how to grow food to eat, and making homes for wildlife creatures like possums” Madison

“We can create a carbon sink by planting trees.” Ellorie

“Everyone working together to make a difference to our environment and global warming.” Ruby and Ellorie

“To encourage other people to try and change so that they’re not using as much resources and making pollution.” Gabriel and Ellorie

Environmental Leaders (students from Prep-Year6) participate in leadership training that empowers them to lead, educate and motivate their peers.

The core purpose of our program is to equip our school community to develop lifelong sustainable practices. It is a dynamic program that continues to evolve as changes occur in our school setting.  

This year, ENPS’s school motto ‘Growing, Discovering, Creating Together’ has been integrated into our Sustainable Schools program - creating a holistic approach that encompasses the four components: Biodiversity, Water, Waste and Energy. 

TERM 4 WEEK 9 SS UPDATE:

Kids teaching kids:

A group of students are busy helping Mrs Newing gather and analyse data related to our baseline report. They have been measuring waste, compost, calculating the percentage of covered areas in our school and finding out how our staff and students get to school. This information is recorded on an interactive website: School Environmental Tracking System  (SETS).

 Over the past few years we have been tracking all our utilities. This year’s data is roughly the same or gone down despite our numbers going up. The trend at our school has been an average of 10 percent reduction in Energy, Water and Waste during the period when our school population has raised from 350 to 525 students and of course an increase in teaching staff and additional classrooms being in the school building. This means we have accumulate saving of approximately 70% in Energy, 50% in Water and over 50% in waste despite a large growth in school population. This is due to ongoing upgrading of our infrastructure and the sustainable practices in place at ENPS.

By working together we can learn how we impact on our environment and set up practices to keep reducing our usage and production of greenhouse gases.  

Our Water our future:

During November we experienced increased rainfall – above average. This was great for our gardens but catchments are still low. You can track the status of our water storages by visiting the following website: http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water_storages

For ideas to save water visit the Our Water our Future website:

www.ourwater.vic.gov.au/saving/target155

Water Learn It Live It conference

Recently Amanda and I attended the annual Water Learn It live It conference. The keynote speaker was an inspiring young marine biologist who has received numerous accolade, including: Young Australian  / Environmentalist of the year. She’s made films, written books and developed programs for many organisation.  She claimed her passion is what drives her and inspires her to go that one step beyond to make the seemingly impossible a reality. We learnt how meters and dataloggers are making positive, sometimes huge impacts on school water conservation. At ENPS we are already using Meter Mate – which tracks our usage and detects leaks. A session on Virtual Water has all the participants gasping as we worked out how much embodied water we all use each day.  Victorian residents are now using on average of 155 litres but did you know that the embodied water is about 2900 litres per person! For example it takes about 800 litres of water to make 1 litre of milk. In our last session: Give Me The Money we discovered that parents, teachers and even students have been involved in seeking grants and were given useful frameworks and tips to help in the grant writing process. We look forward to getting our school community involved in this in 2010.

Waterlogs:

If you have note yet collected yours yet, they are available at the office. Thank you for your support. As well as providing the waterlogs for a reduced price to our community, we have still managed to raise about $400 dollars to put towards our garden projects.

Speaking of Vegie gardens . . .We have harvested broad beans, silverbeet, beetroot and the lettuce. We’d like to build on this year’s successes and would appreciate any assistance you can give in 2010. See Amanda or myself if you can help in any way – we have a range of simple jobs available. 

Greenhouse House games results:

Our small group of committed participants from the Eltham North Primary School community earned 5,653 GreenHouse Games points and achieved a total saving (annualised estimate) of:

26.39 tonnes of greenhouse gas

351,941 litres of water

1.45 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill

By participating in the GreenHouse Games Schools Challenge they have supported an innovative behaviour change pilot designed to help minimise the impacts of climate change.

Jo Harwood

On behalf of the Sustainable Schools team.

 SS T4 W8 UPDATE: See photos of Federation Square event

Watering:

The sudden onset of hot weather is highlighting the need to maintain our gardens.

Whilst we have a dedicated group of students who tend to this during school hours, we are looking for some volunteers who can help keep our garden alive during the school holiday break. If you know you will be home for any time during the holidays and are prepared to help – please contact Jo Harwood so we can draw up a roster and share the job.

Waterlogs are on their way!

Feedback from yesterday’s Resource Smart Awards:

A very excited group embarked the train at Eltham station and travelled to Flinders street on Wednesday the 18^th November. After a lovely morning tea the school presentations commenced in the impressive BMW Edge performance space at Federation Square.  Without direction, our group confidently positioned themselves on the stage and shared information, a Powerpoint presentation and performed a Water Rap that had the audience (approximately 400) involved. Many positive comments were received regarding their performance, outfits and their prowess.

Every school, that presented, articulated the

wonderful projects being undertaken to enhance

sustainability and ‘make a difference’. It was

interesting to hear our students saying :

‘Yes we do that ‘ and ‘that’s a good idea’ as the performances continued. These primary and secondary students certainly impressed the special guests (including Minister for Sustainability, sponsors, resource providers) and other adults present on the day.

It was also interesting to note that behind each group there was at least on key ‘driver’ who leads motivates and inspires our future leaders.  Amongst the 87 Victorian schools represented, there were new schools joining the challenge to become Resource Smart. 

Kate:  It was held at BMW Edge in Federation square. There were 11 people there from ENPS and we all did a performance together. The kids that went were: Ben, Phoebe, riley, Holly, Connor, Ellorie, Jacob, Ruby, David, Taylor and Kate. We performed a Water Rap, said speeches, played instruments and danced. My favourite performance was where they used thongs and bins for instruments. I also like the college who instead of doing a performance aid to the first row and then the third row and so on, to stand up, turn around and then the people sitting down would stand up and ask questions. And the first question was funny. All the performances were good but I think these two were the best. We got two certificates for Waste and Energy.

Taylor:  It was fantastic. I loved seeing how all the other schools are doing their part to save water ,waste, energy and  biodiversity. I realised that we were doing most of the same stuff at our school, except the wetlands projects.

David: It was a fun day and we learn a lot from the other schools and kids.  I learnt that there are a lot of ways to save energy. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? It’s a great idea!’  -  like the wind turbine that one country school had. 

Phoebe: A lot of schools had chooks. I wish we could have some chooks at our school. We could take turns looking after them. Also there were some cool sculptures made from waste  – our school could make some really great sculptures to make our school yard more interesting.     

Holly: At the Resource Smart Awards, I learnt that other schools work just as hard as us to be sustainable, and they are doing things we could try. My favourite part was when we performed and when we won the highly commended awards in Energy and Waste.

Jacob: It was really fun doing the Water Rap. I liked the Baan water model that a college used to demonstrate how sewerage, stormwater and rain get into our waterways.

Riley: We had lots of fun. The snacks were really yum.

Ben: We had a great day because we were highly commended on Energy and waste and everyone was very confident in the presentation. I learnt that we basically do what the other schools do.  We could try to think more about when we’re dropping rubbish. Natalie from totally Wild was co hosting and she is looking for schools to be on the show.

Week 4 SS Update : October 29

Well Water Week sure did flow by very swiftly. Our whole school day was another success with P-2 students completing 4 activities:

Week 3 SS Update

Did you see the article about the ENPS gold water LILI accreditation on the front page of the Diamond Valley Leader magazine featuring  interesting images of some of our students?

It’s still Water week!

On Monday the Level 3 students travelled to the city utilising public transport and their individual energy –thus minimising GHG emissions. At the NGV gallery guides took them on a Water Trail where artworks based on water themes were discovered and appreciated with new understanding. All had the opportunity to express themselves in a workshop session where they explored water based media and created an artwork of their own.

 Today the students have all been involved in a range of activities to raise awareness of our precious resource and learn ways to conserve water at home and at school. Now’s the perfect time to talk with your children about water and revisiting simple actions everyone can undertake to conserve water.

There’s still time to order your supply of WATERLOGs. According to the climate experts we’re in for a hot summer so stock up on a supply to help keep your precious plants alive over the hottest months.

Edendale Practically Green Festival . Here’s another opportunity for the whole family to enjoy music, food and pick up some information at the same time. It’s being held this Sunday at Edendale farm –Gaston’s road, Eltham North . if you get there check out the art installation constructed of decorated boxes –some completed by a selection of ENPS students.

Solar Matters – Yesterday our Year 3-6 Enviro Leaders participated in a solar information session. They were introduced to the basic knowledge and capabilities of our solar installation.

Look out for some ‘Did You Know?’ information snippets from our Enviro Leaders over the next couple of months.

Also there will be a parent PD after the official launch - planned for Assembly to be held on 9^th November. Parents we’d love to have you both at the assembly and parent information session.  Representatives from our providers and grant providers have also been invited. Colin Gillam from Solarsunwerx will explain the details of our system , the monitoring and energy saving benefit and answer questions.  Meanwhile the panels are collecting and converting solar energy.

Community Landscaping Project: Based on the success in our current setup our next project involves the construction of more vegetable boxes. This will allow us to prepare beds so that next year all students from every level can experience the full compliment of the growing experience –from propagating seed to eating the produce. We also need to work on establishing the path and preparing soil for the ‘How Does Your Garden Grow ?’ project, that ha been on hold until the plans for our new building are finalised. We hope you can help  on Sunday     November –even an hour or two would be a great bonus. Together we can achieve wonderful outcomes for our students.  

Term 4 Week 2 news update:

On Monday morning’s assembly, Jenny Hiller, from Yarra Valley Water, presented ENPS with a plaque to celebrate achievement of the Gold Water Learn It Live It milestone – the first gold school out of over 100 schools involved in the YVW program. This successful outcome is the result of many educative and practical actions over the past 4 years. We will be continuing our quest to further reduce our water consumption and increase learning opportunities to establish lifelong sustainable practices.

Renewable Energy in use! 

Thirty photovoltaic cells have been installed

to capture the sun’s golden rays. The panels

have a 5.2KWH capacity that should yield an average of 20 KW per day, which will be used to supplement the school energy needs with renewable energy. There is lots of interesting learning in this project for everyone. Watch this space for the upcoming dates for a special launch and parent information session. Dates will be in next week’s newsletter. Teachers and students will also be involved in sessions with Colin Gillam, from Solarsunwerx, to learn how to interpret data and gain information about the solar panels.

Did you knowthat PV panels actually work more efficiently

on days that are both sunny and windy? Apparently maximum

absorption occurs when wind cools the panels’ surface. 

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES!

This week, each family will receive a Waterlog order form. This is an opportunity to purchase ecological, water saving product for your garden as well as a fundraiser for ENPS.

Our Years 3-6 Environmental Leaders have the opportunity to be involved in a Water Monitoring project at Edendale farm. They will work with staff from Waterwatch, Edendale Farm and ENPS to collect, analyse and publish water quality information based on samples taken from Diamond Creek. This information will the form the basis of an article for the World Water Monitoring Day website. Check out the many different water situations in ‘Stories from around the Globe’ at http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.org/  

Meanwhile our vegie beds are flourishing with increased sunshine and some rainfall. The Friday Cooking Club has been enjoying some tasty treats created with fresh vegetables harvested at the beginning of each session. This is indeed a golden opportunity for our students to learn about the reduction of food miles and how to produce their own food.

Get ready for many WATER events this term beginning with the presentation of our gold Water Learn It live It accreditation at next Monday’s assembly. This achievement represents ENPS’s huge commitment to the program that has water conservation and education as its main aims. Did you know that despite our significant growth in school population and the corresponding infrastructure, ENPS still manages to reduce their water consumption by at least 10 % each year?

During Water Week (19th-23^rd October) Level 3 students are exploring the water trail through art activities at NGV.

A Whole School Water day will see multi age groups (P-2 & 3-6) engaging in a range of water activities on Thursday the 22^nd of October.

Our Years 3-6 Environmental Leaders are participating in the World Water Monitoring project on Tuesday the 27^th October. They will work with staff from Waterwatch, Edendale farm and ENPS to test water samples from Diamond creek. This data will be compared with samples up and down stream and incorporated into an article to be posted on the world Water Monitoring website. You can view the interesting data and work of organisations from all over the world at: http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.org/About/Annual_Reports.html

Invitations are open for students to get involved in making a short film about water saving at ENPS.  We are also developing a presentation for

the Resource Smart Awards ceremony in November.

Look out for a special fundraising offer for Waterlogs. These gel filled sausage shaped objects provide the equivalent of 400 litres of water for up to 3 months. They provide a simple way to keep your garden beds and trees watered –even if you’re not there. Notes will be distributed early next week with additional information and options for purchase. All funds raised will be used to provide watering options for our school garden.

Do you need some helpful tips on keeping your garden alive during summer? The TEN (Teachers Environmental Network) is running a

Workshop on Thursday 22 October 2009 from 4pm to 6pm

at St John of God Accord (formerly Churinga), Address: 108 Diamond Creek Road Greensborough. Melway ref: 11 B10. If you’re interested in attending please let me know by Monday the 19^th October.

Our Biodiversity focus continues with Growing Club activities on Tuesdays and students enjoying our produce in cooking sessions on Fridays. ‘It’s amazing how good food tastes when you’ve grown it yourself’ – Recent quote from one of our happy participants.

Term 3 2009 news : week 7 in August: 

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Term 3 2009 news: Week 6 in August: Download here  It’s funny the things you hear as you move around the school in a day. . .  The 5/6 students were chanting, singing and performing short, environmental messages last Monday. Judging by the results they had achieved in one music session there may be some budding, environment-inspired, advertising executives amongst this group of students.

Nude Food Day report –by Holly Johnson and Jacob Eckersall

On Wednesday, the 29^th of July, we asked everyone to bring lunches to school without any wrapping.

A group of students went to every classroom and measured how full the compost, recycle and rubbish bins were. We tallied up how many children brought no rubbish and how many there were in each class.  

When we compared them to the next day we realised that some classes had less rubbish and some had more. This was because some classes don’t empty their bins everyday. Overall class bins had less than one half –usually only a quarter with tissues and some paper or plastic products. Fruit bins had less than or up to a quarter. Some classes had no wrappers on Nude Food day –some classes need to improve. This activity was part of the Rubbish free Lunch Challenge. In our school entry it is clear that a lot of food scraps go to the worm and compost bins each day – roughly 10 kilograms per week. The recycling bins are used very well but some classes could still sort the paper and reuse the other side of paper.  Most classes had a Scrap paper box. We had a great outcome for Nude Food Day. Overall most students at ENPS are working together to reduce landfill each day. 

Our Growing Club is continuing to make an impression in the garden –weeding and transplanting plants. Thanks to Nicola (and Mrs Harwood) we now have some live worm filled organic material and juice to naturally fertilise our garden beds. A big thank you to Mrs Newing who is keeping the school supplied with well-rotted horse manure and straw. Check out our healthy vegetables in the vegie boxes. We’ll be cooking up the silverbeet soon!

We are now preparing the area above the Greenhouse for our Arbour Week project. After the path is completed, students will plant and create signage for a variety of  local plants.

The purpose of this project is to learn about factors affecting survival in our local environment. Watch out for photos on the website as the project progresses.

More good news! Congratulations Mardi Caracoglia. Her family has won a $200 Bunnings voucher in the Greenhouse games challenge in ‘The school achieving the greatest household average greenhouse gas abatement  (annualised)’ category - by completing a short survey and pledging actions each week resulting in positive changes to reduce Greenhouse gases. Imagine the cumulative impact of everyone making small changes!

Here are some handy hints and interesting facts from the GHG challenge for this week:

Walking (or Riding or Public Transporting) the talk:            Did you know?

 *Driving a car is the second biggest impact most people have on the environment (food is 1st).

*Cars create nearly 20 % of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions (90 %of urban air pollution).

*Half of all car trips are 5km or less.

*In congested areas cycling less than 5km is faster than any other mode of transport.

 Possible actions:

*For short trips, leave the car at home and walk, ride or take public transport.

*Consider going car-less one day per week. Do ‘short trip’ errands where you can easily walk, ride or catch public transport.

*It takes 10 min to walk 1km. Walking 3kms saves on emissions and you complete 30 minutes of exercise!

*Walk your kids to school or join one of our walking school bus routes.

*Avoid air travel wherever you can and make sure you offset any flights.

*Buy a fuel efficient or low-emission vehicle. Choose the right-sized car to meet your needs.

*If you need to use the car for errands plan one trip for all errands.

*Regularly service your car – a poorly maintained car generates more emissions.

*Drive smoothly, with gradual acceleration from the lights & keep your tires inflated.

Cutting down on Consumption:

Have you ever thought how much energy has gone into the things you use and consume?

All foods, goods or services require energy to make and transport them. ‘Embodied energy’ is the obvious and hidden energy that is in everything we purchase - from the time the raw materials are extracted, through the growing or manufacturing process, during the storage and transportation phases, to the use and the final disposal. If we start to think about the embodied energy involved in food, good or services we can then understand the impact our product choices and consumption has on our planet.

Measure your impact on our planet is by calculating your Ecological Footprint:

Ecological footprint is a way to estimate the amount of bio-productive land and sea area needed to sustain your lifestyle – to provide the resources you use and consume, and deal with the waste you generate (including greenhouse gases). According to the latest Living Planet Report the average Australian footprint is 7.8 global hectares (gha) per person. This is 2.8 times the world average footprint of 2.7 gha/person and well beyond the level of what our planet can regenerate on an annual basis - an equivalent of about 2.1 gha/person/year. Australians are consuming above our ‘fair share’ of the Earth’s resources. Victoria has the largest footprint (per capita) due to our reliance on brown coal for energy. Our challenge is to reduce our consumption of resources, including electricity generated from brown coal, and reduce our ecological footprint.

http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/default.asp

The personal Ecological Footprint calculator is fun and takes ~10 minutes to complete. http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/personal/introduction.asp

Ecological footprint student activities: http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/students/activities/default.asp

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE = less waste, less pollution, lower carbon emissions and it saves money!

Reduce (and Refuse):

Houses, televisions, meals - as things get bigger so do the demands on the earth. We can easily reduce our footprint by avoiding unnecessary consumption:

Do you boil enough water for six cups of tea when you only want one?

Do you leave the TV or stereo on when you leave the room?

Do you throw things away unused? Do you allow food to rot in the fridge?

Small acts like this seem insignificant but collectively they add up and contribute to our ecological footprint.

Refuse (think before you buy):

Before you make that next purchase think: Do I really need it? Will I use it more than once? What will happen to it when I have finished with it?

Put a No junk mail sticker on your letterbox: This discourages the delivery of paper advertising into households and over consumption - that's a win for our environment. 

Reuse (and Repair)

Most of what we consume ends up as rubbish within months, weeks, days or even minutes.

Australia is the second most wasteful society (per capita) in the world sending an average of nearly 700 kg of waste per person to landfill every year. That’s enough rubbish to cover Victoria! By extending the life cycle of products we can cut down on that rubbish. Try to buy items that are: reusable, come in reusable packaging, can be refilled or repaired. 

Recycle

Australians recycle more than 1.4 billion glass bottles, 2.3 billion aluminium cans and billions more plastic and paper items every year. Recycling reduces landfill and saves resources:

*Recycling an aluminium can uses only 5% of the energy required to make a new one

*Recycling glass uses 26% of the energy

*1 tonne of paper recycled saves 13 trees, 4100 kilowatts of electricity and > 30000 litres of water. Are you uncertain about what you can recycle?

*Go to http://www.recyclingnearyou.com.au/  to find out what and where you can recycle in your council region.

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Term 3 2009 July news: Download here

Term 2: 2009 June news: Download a colour copy about the activities we are undertaking this term. Download here

Term 1: 2009 April news: Jo Harwood and Amanda Newing are coordinating our environmental education programs.  Over the holiday a large flat area was created so that we can install a fabulous vegie garden, worm farm and undercover learning area for students to work. 

Find out more future vegie garden zone. (February 2009)

Term 1: 2009 February news: In line with this year’s Environmental Day theme, all sustainable activities will focus on making positive changes in all the SS components - beginning with Waste (Term 1), Biodiversity (Term 2), Energy (Term 3) and Water (Term 4). We have the opportunity to be involved in some new projects as well as building on existing initiatives, like Carbon Sink and Water Live it, learn it.

Our school was a Finalist in the 2008 Resource Smart School Awards: We were competing with three other schools in the Waste Smart and Energy Smart categories.  Winners and finalists were announced at Federation Square.

 

10 of our environmental leaders prepared a dance, song and chant to present to the audience on the day. It is great to be recognised for the efforts the students and school community are making and new initiatives we implement.

In the words of some of our Environmental leaders:

With our Waste Warriors, we’re working towards having no rubbish on the ground. We get to encourage others to be responsible. We also take the message out of the school in the newsletter, on the website and tell people who are not at our school .

Ashlyn and Chris

I think it’s good that we get people involved in caring for the environment. Melony

We try our best to think about and make changes ,to the way we live, so that we have a better future for the next generation. Gabriel

 

We are all winners because we are all working together to make changes to our everyday practices to use at school and at home and help our environment. To read the complete 2008 ResourceSmart Booklet click here.

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Eltham North PS also won the 'Energy Smart' Schools Award for Victoria in 2007.

See article, presentation powerpoint, case study (page 5 & 6).

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Meet our new ENVIRO HEROES (download ~870k PDF) charicatures and description. Also click on each heroes name: BioBooster, Energyro, Water Wizard (boy) & Water Wizard (girl), WasteMuncher

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The Sustainables Household Challenge: We enjoyed piloting the Sustainable Challenge with our community. This project, managed by the Gould League, is an extension project of "The Sustainables Household Challenge" an initiative of the Victorian Government’s Our Environment, Our Future - Victoria’s Environmental Sustainability Framework and Making Victoria a Sustainable State - a Ministerial Statement on Environmental Sustainability. Find out more about the Sustainable Household Challenge and meet Lemony, sam , Hydra and Solaris.

State of Schools Report ~ Baseline data audit (updated term 3 2008) Our upgraded set of spreadsheets enable us to easily audit and monitor consumption statistics. Click on the the service to view results: OverviewBaselinesGraphsElectricityGasWaterWasteRecycleWalk to SchoolRetrofits

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 National Nine News TV Weather ReportsNational Nine News TV Weather Reports with Steve Jacobs 'live' from ENPS (Monday 3 Dec 2007)

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Sample Unit of Learning  Level 4 - Environmental Sustainability  (PDF Doc ~180kb)

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Read about Eltham North in The Age liftout June 4, 2007. Page 1, Page 2 - warning large download files (4mb & 1mb)

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Find put more about the CERES Sustainables Schools Initatives, 2006 achievements and case studies (ENPS is case study number 10) - details here (~800k PDF download) 

Here is the February 2009 edition (download 1.3 mb)of CERES Sustainability newsletter.

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Our journey  in 'embedding sustainable behaviours'.

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You might like to review the concepts explaining Sustainable Schools This is a nice concise document. 

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World Environment Day activities June 2008

We created a Waste Chant in term 2 2008.  Its really fun. click here to listen to our Chant

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Policies: Here are some relevant 'Sustainable Schools' school based policies:

2~38 Waste Management Policy

5~19 Environment Policy

5~20 Biodiversity Policy

5~21 Water Bottle Cleaning Policy

5~22 Energy Policy

5~23 Waste Minimisation Policy

Educating Sustainable Futures resource booklet. ( brilliant ! )

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2008 Launch of the Victorian Gov't "Water Learn It Live It" initiative at the Melbourne Zoo in June.  Our environment leaders were selected to share a PowerPoint, give speeches and sing an original chant (with accompanying moves) to outline what ENPS does to learn about and conserve water.  (photos and movie coming soon).

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Our term two Sustainable Schools 2008 highlights.

 Focussing on Waste Issues ~ term 2 2008

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Thanks you to the families who have already sent along several pairs of shoes. If every family at ENPS sends along at least 2/3 pairs of shoes we will reach our target of 750-1000 pairs of shoes. So what are the environmental benefits of donating your shoes?

In Your Shoes supports environmental sustainability initiatives, by:

RETHINKING: Do I have a use for these shoes?

REDUCING the amount of shoes discarded equates to less landfill.

REUSING these wearable shoes for those in need, saving resources.

RECYCLING reusable materials.

It’s simple! Just tie those shoelaces or band shoes together. Then send them to your child’s classroom by the 15^th September.  Help others whilst reducing your clutter.

Every little change adds up to significant differences.

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1. ENPS Solar Project Launch at Assembly on Monday. Parents, students and teachers are encouraged to wear a SUN inspired hat. There will be prizes for the most creative and ‘brilliant’ hats. So let’s get creative!
2. Solar Parent PD - We’d love to see many parents attending. Colin Gillam will be running this session that outlines how our solar energy system operates and outlines the benefits for ENPS. I can assure you there is lots of interesting learning for anyone who attends. Please return the slip sent home today if you can attend next Monday morning.
3.  Community Landscaping Project –Sunday the 15^th November. Due to the success of our vegetable boxes, we now wish to expand the opportunities for all our students to get involved in the ‘growing to the table’ process. On the day there will be opportunities for the whole family to get involved for a few short hours: building two more wooden boxes, planting /weeding in the existing garden, propagating seed and learning how to make a no-dig garden. A few hours of your time will contribute significantly to the enhancement of your child’s experiences as they learn to grow and cook their own food and reduce food miles.

1. ENPS Solar Project Launch at Assembly on Monday. Parents, students and teachers are encouraged to wear a SUN inspired hat. There will be prizes for the most creative and ‘brilliant’ hats. So let’s get creative!
2. Solar Parent PD - We’d love to see many parents attending. Colin Gillam will be running this session that outlines how our solar energy system operates and outlines the benefits for ENPS. I can assure you there is lots of interesting learning for anyone who attends. Please return the slip sent home today if you can attend next Monday morning.
3.  Community Landscaping Project –Sunday the 15^th November. Due to the success of our vegetable boxes, we now wish to expand the opportunities for all our students to get involved in the ‘growing to the table’ process. On the day there will be opportunities for the whole family to get involved for a few short hours: building two more wooden boxes, planting /weeding in the existing garden, propagating seed and learning how to make a no-dig garden. A few hours of your time will contribute significantly to the enhancement of your child’s experiences as they learn to grow and cook their own food and reduce food miles.