Sustainability at SJV

Our Marine Ambassadors, Ava, Tia, Evie, Oliver, took part in their third workshop last week.  They completed a range of activities which were focussed on land and waterways care.  The ambassadors will be presenting activities to the junior school students next term to help build awareness of the importance of protecting our environment and the small things we can do as a community and as individuals.  The SJV students continue to represent our School well, always showing respect for presenters and participating actively.  Here is their presentation from the Assembly last Friday. (Ms Peppard)

Introduction by Ava 

On Tuesday the Marine Ambassadors gathered for our third workshop.  This workshop was  aimed at restoring the coastal plants along the Bay.  We had an action packed day, learning about Indigenous plants, common items which are polluting our waterways, and had a wonderful opportunity to meet an Indigenous man who taught us about the importance of possum skin cloaks and hunting and fire making tools.   

Weeding by Tia

The first activity we did was weeding, which was my personal favourite. It was a really simple activity but was extremely fun. We did  weeding because we don't want the bad plants ruining our environment therefore we put our effort in to pull them out. We walked around the side of the beach and looked for succulents and pulled them out. We also pulled out the grasses which are invasive and are stopping the local plants and animals living how they should.  Evie, Ava and I went around the corner where there were so many. Oliver worked hard pulling out the tough grasses.  It was amazing how many we ended up pulling out. My favourite part was when I accidentally pulled out an enormous one. Even Evie pulled out an ants nest. Overall it was 100% my favourite activity by far! 

Planting by Ava

The next activity we did was planting, this was my second favourite activity. We all went around the back and planted around two plants each. We learned how to plant a plant properly and how to treat them with care. After we planted it we had to water them. Tia put a little too much water and the plant loved having a bath. We did this to replant good plants on our beaches.  Overall it was so much fun and  I loved learning about how to plant plants on the beach.  

Sand  by Oliver

We started by talking about how to do this activity safely.  We got lots of different items out of the sand.  After collecting the items out of the sand and putting them on the table and writing them down we got two batteries, lots of plastics, a sinker and a squid jib with some fishing line on the sinker.  We talked about what impact it all had and what it does to the environment and we found out that batteries are really bad for our environment, and that we can reuse hair ties. We did this to realise how much impact there can be just with little bits of plastic. Tiny bits of rubbish can all add up to be a big piece of rubbish which is horrific!

Culture Activity by Evie 

Our last activity was a cultural presentation from an Indigenous leader from a group called Living Culture. He told us about how people hunted thousands of years ago, we also learnt about animal fur and a type of possum that has hollow fur!  We then learnt about an obsidian that is a very sharp rock. After our chat we tried to start a fire, we were split into groups of five and we had a base and a stick to get an ember. Everyone tried very hard but it is quite a hard thing to do. My group got a lot of smoke which means we were quite close to an ember. We did this to learn more about the traditional owners of this land, the aboriginal people.