The Green Team

Alex Baxter & Elise Hawkins

Sustainability Team 

Kingswood Environment Week

Bunnings Incursion 

A huge thank you to all families who brought, and continue to bring in, bottle caps for our mural! We received more than enough to cover our 2.5-metre long mural. The Grade 2's began the mammoth task of sorting the bottle caps into colour groups and then started glueing them on. The Grade 4's then continued with this until the mural was almost finished! There are few gaps and things that need fixing up (the writing etc.) but see below for a nearly finished photo. Catriona from Bunnings will be back soon to complete it with the Green Team and then we will find the perfect place to put it up. 

Green Team for the Week 

5R were the Green Team last week and collected the soft plastics from the whole school. Check out how much they collected to deliver to Woolworths! We are currently looking into buying some furniture from REPLAS to support the recycling of soft plastics and so the students can actually see what the waste is being turned into. 

Resource Smart Schools 

If you attended last Friday's assembly, you would know that Kingswood has been awarded the 3rd star for the Resource Smart School Program. This means we now have the 'Core' star, the 'Energy' star and the 'Waste' star. In order to reach this achievement we needed to implement lots of changes in regards to waste around the school including having compost, soft plastic recycling, signage, the reuse and recycling of materials and many other things. There were 60 plus items we needed to check off and it took us roughly two years to achieve. Keep an eye out for our third star on the sign outside the office (on the wall of the Unit C). 

Prep Local Excursion to Braeside Park 

The Preps were studying the book 'Refugees' by David Miller this week for Environment Week which is all about two wild ducks who become refugees when their swamp is drained. On Thursday they visited Braeside Park to view the habitat ducks live in to build some context before reading the story. They noticed the reeds surrounding the wetlands where the ducks would hide to keep safe, the water they would swim in and the sounds of birds and bugs buzzing around. They also heard trucks in the distance and discussed what would happen if those loud rumbling, grumbling machines entered the ducks home. This learning is carrying on this week for the Preps. 

Braeside Park Night Walk

On Friday night, we had 110 Kingswood parents and students come to Braeside Park to participate in a night walk as part of our Kingswood Environment Week. This is the biggest turn out we have ever had for a sustainability event at Kingswood. Thank you to everyone who came!

Members of the Friends of Braeside Park group lead us on tours around the park with special infrared torches. We spotted possums, birds, insects and a tawny frog mouth owl. The students were so excited, running around with their torches and even playing tiggy with Frank from the Friends of Braeside Park group. It was great to see so many mums and dads having a chat, spending time with their children and of course getting their daily steps up!

Many working parents who attended commented that they loved this event becuase they had time to go home and have dinner before coming out to Braeside Park. They also said it gave them a good opportunity to socialise with other parents as they walked along, they even traded phone numbers to organise future play dates for their children. 

Sustainability in Science

Take a look at the photos of some of the learning our students have been doing in Science classes. They have been exploring threats to natural environments and endangered species under the following headings. The Grade 6's have been looking at these topics through the lens of 'Frozen Planet'. Our Grade 5's with the heading 'Desert Dwellers' and our Grade 3's and 4's under the umbrella of 'Protecting Primates'. They have come up with some amazing ideas to protect our environments and help our endangered animals which I'm sure they would be happy to tell you about if they're asked! 

Upcoming Events

8th of August

Leader Local Grants Awards Ceremony 

As Kingswood were voted top 3 projects with our wicking beds idea, Miss Hawkins and Miss Baxter will attend the awards ceremony to find out if we have won the $1000 for this project. 

September 

We have pre-ordered a DVD copy of the documentary '2040' and are hoping to organise a movie night in the Hall for the community to come and watch. Watch this space and Compass for more information. 

Kingswood Community Tips

Thank you to the Tondo family (Michael Tondo, 1S) who drew our attention to a company that create prosthetic limbs from bottle caps and another which creates wheelchairs from bread tags. Keep collecting these items as we will look into setting up a collection station in the school somewhere!

If you have a tip for us or the rest of the Kingswood community, please email it through to baxter.alexandra.a@edumail.vic.gov.au. We thrive in a team culture. Thank you!