Sustainable snapshot

May 13th - May 17th was Education Week and this year the focus was on STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. 

Students at Hillsmeade have one hour of STEM sessions from Prep - Year 6 for one semester. During Education Week students undertook an additional STEM challenge in their classrooms. 

STEM is more than science experiments, although that is a fun part of it. STEM is about building resilience, developing critical thinking and being able to adapt solutions when faced with a problem, skills that are crucial in all aspects of life, not just at school.

The students in Prep and Year 1 were faced with a challenge to create the longest newspaper piece, without scissors. Students had to come up with a plan to tear the newspaper into smaller pieces and glue each strand together. 

The students in Grade 2 - Grade 6 were tasked with creating the tallest tower out of spaghetti and masking tape. Students had to consider the strength of the base to support their tower and place a marshmallow at the highest point. 

We have been having quite the discussion amongst staff at Hillsmeade about Tetra Packs and whether they are recyclable. It is common these end up in recycling and unfortunately in the City of Casey these are a contaminant and they are not recyclable. 

The small juice & milk tetra packs, most of the time, are 10c returnable to the container deposit scheme, but they do not go in your curb side recycling.

Check the 10c mark on the pack to see if they are eligible. If in doubt – LEAVE IT OUT. Don’t assume the tetra pack is recyclable, best to leave it out of recycling if you aren’t sure.