Sustainability @ St Helena’s
 
 
All for one and one for all!” and one for all!”
We are the Tree Amigos and we are Sustainability Superheroes.  Listen to our podcast to find out why we visited the students at St Helena’s...............
ASISTM Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics. Healthier Living for a Healthier Environment This year we are taking part in a sustainability project. We are learning about the importance of making positive choices to maintain healthy lifestyles. This term we have taken part in a number of activities to raise awareness of our special focus on sustainable living. Our school year began with a spirituality, art and music workshop with Ms Dillon. Ms Dillon talked about the importance of our relationship with God and how we can pray using meditation, art and music. Our project was officially launched on March 2nd with many special events. Our school day began with a healthy breakfast provided by the P & F. This was followed by clean-up Australia activities and an energetic whole school aerobics session. We invited special guests to an assembly and they included Brother Olly Pickett from Wheelchairs for Kids, (http://www.wheelchairsforkids.org ) the R-Gang (http://www.rgang.org.au ) and we were introduced to environmental super heroes - The Tree Amigos. There was more activity in the evening with a family picnic ‘An Evening in the Green’ and the wider school community enjoyed and evening of fun and fine entertainment by Keith McDonald ( http://www.mrmacsmusic.com.au )http://www.wheelchairsforkids.orghttp://www.rgang.org.auhttp://www.mrmacsmusic.com.aushapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2
In our classrooms Kindy - Term 2, 2007 The kindy children have joined in the sustainability fun. The children have been collecting ‘junk’ material. We have discussed ways that we can re-use the materials to make other things. We used old material reels to make tapping sticks and experimented with other junk materials to see what sounds we could make. We also used a refrigerator box to make a boat that we could play in outside. We used egg cartons to make bees and caterpillars. MAG 1 - Term 2, 2007 - Keeping Our Bodies Healthy
Fun Fitness in MAG 1  Every day the MAG 1 students enjoy doing Daily Fitness. 
In small groups of 4 to 6 we rotate around 5 different stations for 3 minutes at a time. We learn different rules and skills and by rotating around the stations we learn to perfect our different abilities. Daily fitness is so much fun and we look forward to starting the each day with this great way to keep fit and healthy. MAG 2 - Term 2, 2007 We have been learning alot about sustainability in MAG 2. We began our term by setting up a Science Experiment that helped us observe what happens when rubbish is thrown onto the ground. Over the following weeks we watched as things like as apple cores and a banana peels slowly turned black and got smaller and began to break down. We compared this to things like a disposable nappy and a ring pull from a can that didn’t break down much at all. We were able to see how important it is to be thoughtful when it comes to disposing our rubbish. We researched how some of the power that we use is made from the sustainable energy source of wind and looked at slides of the Wind Turbines in Geraldton. We studied how newspapers and bottles are recycled and then using this information we then created our own paper out of both recycled newspapers and paper that had been through the shredder. We then used the paper to create an art activity. We ran a power saving competition that measured the amount of electricity that families used over a fortnight. We encouraged families to use power saving habits in the second week to see if it made a difference to the amount of energy used. We looked at the difference between recycling , reducing, and reusing and created our own R-gang characters. One of our key projects was designing and making our own instruments out of recycled material. We then used these instruments to record our own music. MAG 3 - Term 3 - Global Warming We have been learning about sustainability and what we can do in order to make our earth a better place to live. Students completed a project on Global Warming and its effects on our world. We were thrilled to be visited by the R Gang who helped teach us about the 4 R’s - reduce, recycle, re-use and recover. The R Gang are mannequins made out of recycled materials and each stands at about 2 metres tall. We have found out lots of interesting information about the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect, we now know ways to reduce our ecological footprint. Around our school
 
Annabelle lighting a candle with Ms Dillon at our Spiritiva day at the beginning of the year.
Mag 1 students are enjoying a healthy breakfast at school to celebrate the launch of our sustainability project.
 Bayley and Blake and the Mag 3 students collected rubbish from around the school to help keep Australia beautiful as part of Clean Up Australia activities.