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Woodleigh School has long been involved in caring for the
environment, in fact one of the school’s Three R’s
is – Respect for the Environment. The Sustainable School’s
Initiative fit perfectly into the school’s long held
beliefs and both Senior and Junior Campus are involved.
The Junior Campus – Minimbah, have recently achieved
their Five Star Accreditation and the Senior Campus isn’t
too far behind (they are currently building a fully enclosed
animal habitat to protect some of our native animals.)
While Minimbah is very pleased to achieve our Five Star
Rating, we are continually looking for ways to improve our
sustainability and reduce our environmental footprint.
Just some of the projects we have undertaken include-
• Restoring and revegetating the Minimbah Creek area.
• Building a frog habitat, complete with a solar powered
pumping system.
• Year 6 did some fundraising for a water tank, which
is now installed and used for gardens. We are currently installing
a rainwater collection system to supply the toilets.
• Participating in the Frankston Council ‘Halve
Garbage Waste’ program.
• Recycling paper, glass and food scraps.
• Recycling toner cartridges whereby the funds collected
have been used to delamp the Year 4 classroom (and will continue
to fund further delamping.)
• Mobile phones are collected and donated to WaterAid
, a charity that uses the funds generated to provide access
to clean drinking water and sanitation in areas around the
world.
• Collecting corks and recycling them through Ritchies
Supermarkets / Make a Wish Foundation.
• Participating annually in tree planting days and clean
up schools day.
• We are also very proud of our ‘Supercycle’
-we act as a collection point for ‘Beyond Waste Recycling’
to collect computers, printers, small electrical items and
toys etc, from the wider school community.
• We use student ‘Energy Assassins’ who
patrol the classrooms and other buildings to ‘terminate’
any lights left on during breaks.
• Student led environment groups.
• Our Senior Campus has achieved ‘Land for Wildlife’
Status and Minimbah is ‘working towards’ accreditation.
• We have also been involved in the ‘Weed Warriors
Program,’ breeding biological controls for local invasive
weed species
• Members of the ‘i Sea, i Care’ Dolphin
Ambassadors Program with the Dolphin Research Institute.
• The school also has murals and mosaics depicting environmental
themes and stories.
Through these initiatives we have seen some excellent results,
including
• Energy: Our most recent bills show a further drop
in consumption by 10%
• Water: We are looking forward to our water tanks being
installed soon and the huge difference they will make to our
water consumption.
• Waste: we now have people bringing us their waste
to recycle and we have still reduced our overall waste output
by 25%!
More
info.
For more information about the school contact Phil
Thomas on 9787 2733, email thomp@woodleigh.vic.edu.au
or go to the Woodleigh School Juniro Campus website at www.woodleigh.vic.edu.au.
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