Summer activities at Grasshoppers are often themed around holidays and seaside visits, which provide endless opportunity to discuss the fragility of marine habitats.
Staff at Grasshoppers decided to design an experiment to demonstrate to their young eco-warriors how damaging litter is to our oceans. Using water play trays, to create a marine environment for sea life toys, staff then began adding different materials like plastic bottles and banana skins! The young children were able to see how difficult these new items made it for their marine toys to move around, leading to rich discussion on whether they would enjoy swimming in other people’s rubbish and whether marine animals would understand that litter was not food to be eaten.
Now, young children at Grasshoppers clearly understand that we have a responsibility to respect and protect marine life and this simple introduction to science developed communication and language skills as well as an understanding of the world!

At their very first Eco-Committee meeting of the academic year, Year 3 at Canon Burrows voiced their concerns about how many single-use plastics were being used throughout their school. They conducted an initial survey using sample data to find that their school use more than one hundred thousand pieces of single-use plastic each year, with 88,530 pieces being used in lunch boxes and 28,080 single-use milk bottles. The Eco-Committee also discovered all snacks, ice cream and fruit pots were served in single-use plastic.

Following their research, the Eco-Committee sprang into action. First they phoned their catering supplier to see if they could help them cut down on plastic. Next, they approached their school chef to see whether they could source an alternative to single-use plastic pots. Finally, they raised awareness amongst pupils and parents by campaigning in class, writing letters home and planning a whole school assembly which launched a plastic-free week they had also planned.

After their actions, they repeated their initial survey and found that school lunchboxes had cut down on single-use plastics by more than 50%, they now used 26,000 less milk bottles a year and the canteen had stopped using single-use plastic pots. The Eco-Committee made a colossal difference and had fun doing so!

When the Eco-Committee at Brinsley Primary School in Nottingham completed their first Environmental Review, they decided to choose Waste as a topic for their Action Plan. A particular area of concern for Brindley, and many Eco-Schools, was individual milk cartons for daily milk – the Eco-Committee wanted to find a more eco-friendly alternative. After applying for funding through a Veolia scheme, the Eco-Committee bought bamboo beakers with lids (to minimise spills). The impact was immediate, instead of throwing away 300 cartons of milk a week (plus straws, wrapping etc.) their milk provider now sends 25 large milk cartons per week which are then recycled! By making this one change waste at Brindley has reduced by a quarter!

A parent of 2 children attending Burford approached Burford’s Eco-Coordinator with the idea of creating a unique and thought provoking piece of art designed to raise awareness of plastic pollution. Families were contacted via newsletter, social media and posters and asked to collect bottle tops for the project. These bottle tops were collected over an entire term with pupils dropping their donations off in colour coded boxes, created from repurposed printer paper boxes. Bottle tops were washed before use and the artworks design was based on the differing amounts of coloured bottle tops collected.

The final design has plenty of meaning: the open book represents the education provided in the school, colours emerging from the book showcase the magic of knowledge, the plus sign mathematics, the heart focuses on mental health and wellbeing, the question mark curiosity and the water, leaves and trees represent our environment. Creating the artwork involved the whole school community – all families collected bottle tops and all children were given the opportunity to glue bottle tops to the mural. Year 6 children were also trusted to use power tools to help screw many of the bottle tops on. The final result is proudly displayed on the school building and feedback from the school’s community has been fantastic!

As the vast majority of Ocean Plastic originates from land, the Eco-Champions at Kingsbury Green Primary School in London decided to focus on encouraging children and adults across the school community to make the switch from single-use plastic bottles to refillable water bottles. They began their project by delivering an assembly focusing on the issue, they then visited each class to monitor the number of single-use bottles children were bringing into each class each day. The Eco-Champions found that in some classes 80 – 90% of children were bringing single-use plastic bottles to school on a daily basis! They targeted the classes they had identified as using the most single-use bottles and delivered further outreach sessions to educate them on the problems associated with single-use. Through the actions of the Eco-Champions, the classes which had previously had 80 – 90% of children bringing single-use plastic bottles to school every day now have a reusable water bottle percentage of 90-95% and even those that still have a single-use water bottle regularly reuse them!

Having previously achieved three Eco-Schools Green Flag awards and covered 9 of the Eco-Schools topics, the Eco-Committee at Richard Avenue Primary School decided to work on Eco-Schools England’s newest topic, Marine, for their Green Flag renewal.
Working with Sunderland City Council for the second year running, the children were asked to design and create large planters to be used in the cities busy shopping areas. The Eco-Committee worked with their school’s Art Club to produce eco-friendly planters that raised awareness of the problems plastic waste causes to our oceans and marine life.
The children then decided that as well as displaying art work, they also wanted to actively prevent further pollution: the upcoming school holidays were the perfect opportunity to do this. The Eco-Committee and Coordinator found a video clip from (the legendary) David Attenborough that highlighted plastic pollution in the oceans. They showed this clip, in an assembly, to their whole school and kicked off their holiday homework project (see picture).
Despite being lucky enough to live near very well maintained beaches, the children in Richard Avenue Primary School understand that every little helps!

Pupils at Hawthorns school were shocked by the impact our plastic problem was having on marine life, so they thought it was important to raise awareness of the issue. Their amazing projects included: creating jellyfish from recycled materials then adding plastic bags to their display to demonstrate how similar they look and why sea turtles may eat plastic bags by mistake (top left), creating a scene (from recycled materials) that shows how sad the fishes in our oceans are because they are surrounded by plastic (top right) and creating ocean bottles – one which shows what our clean ocean should look like and one that shows what our oceans are starting to look like (bottom left). Finally, one class even decided to investigate making eco-friendly glitter in the run up to Christmas (bottom right), their first attempt was unsuccessful, but this means they get the chance to try again (next time they will bake for longer)!

The Eco-Committee at St Mary’s wanted to use art to raise awareness of microplastics within the Oceans and the everyday plastics we use that can be recycled and those that can’t. Students were asked to bring small, hard, non-recyclable plastic items to school, which could be used to create murals. Having created various designs including a seahorse, fish and turtle, the Eco-Committee then collected old plastic bags (that could no longer be used) and repurposed them to create an ocean backdrop. Not only do these murals send a powerful message about microplastics in the ocean to all who walk by, they are also a demonstration that even non-recyclable plastics can be reused rather than sent to landfill!

The Eco-Committee at Ashfield decided they would like to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean by collecting plastic bottles to build into a greenhouse. They launched a tutor competition to see which tutor group could collect the most bottles (we needed about 1400), this brought in about 500 bottles. They then asked parents and students to keep bringing them in and soon they had all the bottles needed. To save money, the Eco-Committee put out an appeal to local building firms for the materials needed for the frame, which were kindly donated by a local construction firm. The staff on the Eco-Team built the greenhouse frame before the summer holidays and when students returned in September the Eco-Committee began to put the bottles together in preparation for adding to the frame, when ready the site staff would add them. Unfortunately, COVID-19 disrupted plans, meaning that students were unable to complete the greenhouse due to social distancing. However, excellent Eco-Coordinator Mrs Ford and her helpful husband completed it over the summer break, so when lockdown ended the greenhouse was ready for the Eco-Committee to start growing plants and working on their next Eco-Schools topic: Biodiversity.