Kwinana Youth Council Events Want MK Help

The Youth Council will help audit rubbish and see how they can reduce waste at their events in the future.

 

The Kwinana Youth Council have invited MK to help them audit their youth event on 27th October 2012. MK Doing More With Less Taem will set up a display to promote their work and help audit the event - the MK Team will find out just how much waste is generated at the youth event and then help the Youth Council develop a policy for waste free events. Send in your ideas of how events can become waste free.

Calista Team Steam Ahead

Kids were collecting paper recycling from each class in boxes when I arrived!

The team have been researching wormfarms and are looking forward to a visit the The Grove to check out their ideas!

Calista Primary School Doing More With Less Team have been busy with various projects since the Doing More With Less Sustainability Roadshow in Kwinana. Weekly meetings ensure their progress is steady - they have used their Flip camera and are making a film about their wormfarm research and how to set up a wormfarm. Using their recycling philospoghy they have found two old unused wormfarms and fixed them up and then set up two wormfarms to collect class food waste. The film will be completed and given to MK to use to promote recycling. They are also making a Powerpoint about the excursion to the Rockingham Landfill site to show other schools. The kids are really keen to continue reducing their food waste - they are looking into setting up a compost unit  to reduce this waste further. The kids will visit The Grove in Peppermint Grove to look at how they tackle sustainbility. Can't wait for more updates.

New Kids Join the Team

Aryan, Harry, Indra and Hannah celebrate with chocolate

Yesterday Harry, Aryan, Hannah and Indra joined the Doing More with Less Team. Aryan (11) came to the City of South Perth Ambassadors meeting to discuss how he got his Dare to Lead  project up and running to plant trees. He talked about how his project needed  " to make a positive change in society"  and that he had to keep working at it to get someone who would help him reach his goal. Evetually after many knock backs Aryan and 6 friends planted 43 trees in 45 minutes on the foreshore in Salter Point, with assistance from MK and the City of South Perth.  The team came up with a ten things to keep them on track:
1. Brainstorm and come up with an idea.
2. Choose your best option.
3. Contact people who can help you.
4. Have a back up plan.
5. Stay positive.
6. Strength comes in numbers.
7. Dont wait to long to do it.
8. Prepare for your activity.
9. Take action.
10. Celebrate with chocolate.

So after Aryan's talk Cat introduced the Doing More With Less Program and talked about the Two Hands Project. She had noticed a whole lot of cigarette butts outside the meeting room. So the team put the ten ideas into action - and voila - 452 butts in ten minutes! The kids simply saw the problem and took action for ten minutes.

452 butts in ten minutes! What could you achieve?

The team will now go back to their schools and put some ideas into place. Let's see what they get up to.

Doing More with Less at Dawesville

I was so happy to go to Dawesville Catholic Primary School to see everything they do to look after the environment.  The Green Team took me on a tour of the school and I got to see lots of productive vege patches, 25 (!!!) chickens, 3 aquaponics systems, a well-organised recycling centre, worm widdle for sale, and a whole lot more!  We went out with the Pre-Primary kids.  They picked veges and collected the eggs, then went back to the class to eat.  Nearly all of the pre-primary kids loved their veges!



I had a few questions for The Green Team and they had some well thought out answers.
1. "What Doing More with Less Project are you doing?"  "We want to have a community compost.  We were going to have it for the whole community but we would like to start with our Parish."  (They had some great reasons for this.)
2. "What students are involved in waste projects?"  "The entire school!  Different groups have different roles and they are led by the Green Team, Chook Champions, Worm Warriors and the Recycling group."

3. "How can you share what you have been learning about?"  "We made a movie.  The Green Team used the Millennium Kids bloggie camera to make a 4 minute movie, teaching other people about Doing More with Less."  We will be sharing this movie on the blog soon.  Stay tuned!
4.  "Where to next with your project?"  "We need to complete the design  and then get a quote."
5.  "How can Millennium Kids help?"  "Perhaps with a little bit of funding? We have a parent at the school who has built a lot of the vege enclosures.  We will speak with him about how much it might cost."
At Dawesville they have raised funds for other projects with Spellathons, Lapathons and a Waste Wise grant.  It's great to see that the kids are a part of the problem-solving and planning of all the projects. Well done Dawesville! Ingrid

Worm Widdle for Sale!!  

The Green Team from Dawesville Reports

Today I visited Dawesville Catholic College and the students wrote a report about what they have been doing.  Here it is.

At Dawesville Catholic Primary School the environment plays a big role in our school learning.
Each class takes a role in the helping of the environment by having there own recycling bucket and a Chook bucket which supplies food for the chickens and worms. Our year two's are in charge of paper recycling and making sure that our school is being paper wise. Also the Green Team make sure that the classes are not putting any plastic in the recycling bucket we give out the environmental award, each Monday assembly. We have been running this Environmental program for three years and are very proud of what we have achieved. We want this to carry on as long as the school goes.

Back to bushland

Here's a bunch of rubbish that the students from Medina collected yesterday.  I can't wait to see this space being turned back in to bushland.  Next week I am meeting with the kids from years 4, 5 and 6 and they will tell me all about their progress.  Here's a few questions I'll be asking:  What did you do with the rubbish you collected?  What is your plan to try to stop people from putting their rubbish there?  What have other schools done to keep an area waste-free?  How will you let people know what you are doing?  What kind of plants will you plant - especially bush tucker and bush medicine?  Who will help you?  Lots of these questions are on the MK 10 Step plan.  Good luck!

A Fabulous Meeting with Riverside PS

Justin's Wormfarm
Justin gave a report about his wormfarm. Justin's mother had problems setting up the wormfarm. Justin helped his Mum. They have already got one bottle of worm juice. Justin will sell it at the Doing More With Less stall at  the Royal Show.  Ingrid is running the Landcare Pavilion and will showcase the project at the Royal Show. Ingrid will give free tickets to Justin so he can get into the Royal Show. The money raised from selling worm wee will go to Millennium Kids. Justin had a chat with is mother and decided to get food scraps from other neighbours. Justin gave them instructions - no citrus, no onions in scraps. People are leaving scraps for Justin. Going so well needs more worms so Justin negotiated with neighbours to give the extra food waste to their chickens.

Waste Audit
The team collected 7 bins from all around the school. They tipped  the waste onto a  big tarp. Separated into three types - plastic - recycling and food waste. Used gloves. They weighed the food waste. Approx 10.6kg of food waste going into the bin each day. Students are throwing away all their sandwiches and the team noticed whole fruit was not being eaten. Greater amount of plastic. The main plastics were  gladwrap, yoghurt sandwich bags and juice boxes and lost of Tetra Paks.

The Chicken Project 
The Chicken Team decided the best way to reduce the food waste was to put in a chicken coop. The girls did a presentation that discussed opportunities, challenges and who would look after them during the holidays.

Cat sent an email with lots of questions:

• What other food will chickens need?
• How will you collect scraps?
• How will we change the behaviour of people doing the wrong thing?
• What other schools have chicken coops?

Skype with Cr Rhys Williams

The students talked to Cr Rhys Williams, City of Mandurah via skype. He was really keen to hear the kids ideas and suggested they come to Council to present ideas. The questions the kids put to Cr Williams were:

• Do you think we could have a recycling plant in WA? 
• Why do we send our recycling over East? 
• Why is it not illegal to put a recycling sign on a product when you cant recycle it. 

Mr Elwood from Cleanaway
Myah asked her Dad to come to the meeting. He works for Cleanaway. At home Mr Elwood teaches his kids about recycling. He thinks education is the key. He really liked the chicken project idea. He said waste going into the ground created problems. He really liked that chickens would reduce the amount of food going into landfill. He was sad to see birds on the landfill. He said there was no control system to keep birds out. He talked about birds that came to the tip - some even come from overseas. There are no predators there to scare them off.

Riverside Team skype Cr Rhys Williams and talk about waste strategies

Creating a New Look Bin

See through bins Bella saw in Europe - she thinks this will make people think before they pin things in the bin!

The team with Rikki from Creative Space 

Kids from North Cottesloe Primary Doing More With Less project introduced their friends from MK Western Suburbs Ambassadors to Rikki Clarke, Creative Spaces yesterday at their meeting and started talking about their idea for a see through bin. The team from North Cottesloe PS were keen to see if making a bin see through would get people to think before they binned their rubbish. The see through bin idea developed after Bella had seen some overseas. Alexandra had also seen some interesting public bins in Europe and they was keen to share their ideas. The team from St Hilda's Junior School, Cottesloe Primary School and North Cottesloe PS discussed their ideas with Rikki, drew their concepts and made notes about they wanted to achieve. The bins would be used at community events such as Sculpture By the Sea, Hullaballoo, St Luke's Sustainability Fair to promote recycling and waste education in the community. The kids checked out the www.thefuntheory.com website and showed Rikki the ideas being put in place overseas. Rikki was really inspired by the kids ideas. Rikki will come back to the next meeting to to present the kids with some concept plans. Thanks to the Community Grant Scheme for the Kids Zero in on Waste Grant.

Waste, Habitats and Manifold Primary School

Students at Manifold are busily cleaning up their schoolyard and teaching students and adults why it's important.  They are learning about the effects of waste on wildlife and on the environment in general. They are encouraging students to reduce the amount of packaging used for their food by having Nude Food Mondays, then maybe on all days!  The enviro team plan to advertise and hold a Clean Up Mano Day each term and will register for the National Nude Food Fundraiser in October.  Go Mano!

Medina Kids Clean Up the Bushland

Kids at Medina are planning to turn a waste land near their school into an outdoor classroom which will have bush tucker, bush medicine and other native plants.  Today they spent two hours cleaning up the area.  They were surprised at what they found - foam mattresses, car parts and even a street sign!  The kids remembered back to the Doing More with Less Roadshow and sorted all of the rubbish into metals, plastic and general waste.  The Sustainability Ambassadors are working through the MK 10 Step plan to work out where to next.  Stay tuned for some photos of the clean up!

A Letter of Thanks - Doing More With Less Kwinana

My name is Tahlia and I am a student at North Parmelia Primary School. I am in room 13 at school and I attended your fabulous conference at the Zone on Wednesday the 15th and Thursday 16th of August. The 10 kids that atatended from my school were so grateful that they got to go.It was a big pleasure to meet all the kids from different schools and all the kind adults. I just wanted to let you know that I had a great time and would just like to say thank you for having us. Yours sincerely Tahlia, Bree, Luke, Jayden, Paige, Tanatswa, Sibyl, Reanne, Gareth, Shyniah.

What? An agenda? Excited!

How excited do we get when we meet with our Doing More With Less schools and there is an agenda that is sent to us? We get very excited, that is what we do!

Meeting Agenda 

20th September 2012, 1.10pm

Riverside Primary School, Room 5

Miss Clark                Welcome and introductions

Justin                         Worm Farm update

Waste Team               Waste audit results and observations.

Waste Team               Chicken Project

Cr Rhys Williams      Question and Answer

Reuben Elwood         Question and Answer

Braeley                       Closing address

Jamie, James and Mitchell, students from Riverside Primary School, had a surprise opportunity last week - they received a reward for their Doing More With Less Project efforts. They were invited to a special meeting at Scotch College in Swanbourne to listen to Paul Sharp, founder of Two Hands Project. Paul showed the students a film about his adventures on the Pacific Ocean looking for rubbish sucked into the ocean from the Japanese Tsunami. Paul tracked the rubbish across the sea and surveyed the distribution and types of rubbish found. He showed the findings to the students. He talked about how rubbish affected marine life and how in fact plastic was pollution because it broke down and was now being eaten by marine life and the marine life was in turn being eaten by other predators, and that people were eating the fish.He said much of it was 'stupid plastic' - plastic that was single use, like bottle tops and plastic bags!
The three boys were inspired by the talk and went back to their school and helped organise their own Two Hands Project - half an hour of cleaning up in a place you love. The students at Riverside chose their school.

Look what can be achieved in 30 minutes! 

Riverside young leaders meet Paul Sharp. Two Hands Project

Harvey Primary School Joins Doing More With Less

Harvey Primary School were not able to come to the Doing More With Less Roadshow in Mandurah so the MK Team will visit them on the 17th October 2012. The students have already been to the landfill site and already have ideas about how they can reduce waste. Next week they will visit the Alcoa Refinery and the Wormfarm and look at how a company manages its waste. From there they will start thinking about their own waste management issues, opportunities and challenges. Welcome to Doing More With Less Harvey Primary School. We look forward to hearing your ideas. Cat MK

Asha and Kali Don't Waste an Opportunity

Asha and Kali from Calista don't waste an opportunity to get informed.  Check out the report they wrote after visiting the Rockingham Landfill Site.  Well done!

Landfill Cells

·      At Millar Road Landfill site cells are made by digging a big hole, adding a thick layer of plastic and then adding pipes for the excess liquid.

·      A single cell at Millar Road Landfill will last up to 2 years.

·      When a cell is full they cover it with a thick layer of plastic, clay and then sand. After that is done they plant shallow rooted native plants.

·      From now on there are not allowed to be any new landfill sites on the Swan Coastal Plain.

By Asha and Kali, Calista Primary School

Oscar and Conner and Their Scientific Thinking

Two Calista students are very concerned about the wasted water at their school and are doing something about it.  They have identified the problem, taken some photos and developed a plan.  At Millennium Kids, we get very excited when students think so scientifically and creatively about environmental issues.  Here we have some problem-solvers of the future!  Here's the plan.

WATER SAVING PIPE SOLUTION

                                              

Hi, I’m Oscar and my friend Connor is working on making a water saving pipe system.  It is going to take a while to build because it is complicated and big pipes are involved with this project.  We will need 2 large funnels, 1 pool filter, 2 large Gas and Liquid Nitrogen canisters, 2 medium sized metal chambers, 1 large mesh piece, 1000 kilowatt motor, cement and 50 pipes.

The tools we will be trying to get hold of are shovels, and a jackhammer.

It works by collecting the water  from the air con and the rain.

I am looking forward to hearing the progress of this idea!

Checking Out The Projects

So many ideas. So many great plans. Ingrid and I spent the afternoon checking out project ideas, mapping out the next steps, devising questions about your project plans to get you thinking and coming up with schedules to sit with you and hear how your projects are developing. More soon. Cat and Ingrid

Riverside Rewards - Jamie's Team

So what would you do if you discovered 25% of rubbish going to landfill could be recycled? This is just what Jamie and his team discovered. They just couldn't believe the figure. They asked questions and they didn't like the answers they got. Jamie was really upset. "This is really bad. I cant believe it," he said. Jamie and his team wanted to find out why the figure was so high. They want to meet with the local Mayor and the Minister for Environment to find out how they can improve this result. So Jamie here goes. I have met with a local City of Mandurah Councillor and told him your story. His name is Rhys Williams. Actually, he has been involved with Millennium Kids for a long time so he knows what kids can do and is really keen to meet with you and hear your ideas. Let me know when your next meeting is so we can set up an opportunity for your team to tell meet him so you can share your ideas.

Riverside Rewards - Sustainability Ambassadors Team

The Riverside Team were not content with one project,  so they have three! The Sustainability Ambassadors Team decided to review the waste created at lunchtime. They think the can reduce the organic waste going to landfill. Since the Sustainability Roadshow the team has met with their teacher, Meg Clark, once a week to discuss how they can make a difference. They are going to audit the waste and weigh it. They  will visit the Rockingham Landfill site and education centre with their whole class as a reward for their efforts so far. They want their whole class involved. I met with the Principal and the Deputy Principal. Everyone is very excited about the project and the students' leadership. Great work girls! I look forward to working with you all at your next team meeting. Doing More With Less Mentor Cat