Sustainability @ TPPS 

Happy Term 3! 

Thank you to the caring volunteers who braved the cold winter weather to look after our chickens over the holidays. It is great to have such a supportive community of people to help us. 

We hope you enjoyed their company and received some eggs as thanks!

In Sustainability, we learn about the seven Wurundjeri seasons. It is now coming to the end of the Wurundjeri season of Waring. We see misty rainy days, wombats emerging from their burrows and birds migrating from Tasmania to warmer areas. This is when male lyrebirds do their courtship dances, maybe you have been lucky enough to spot one up in the Dandenong Ranges? In August, the season of Guling begins, and we will notice the wattle trees bursting into golden blossoms. 

On Tuesday, four students from Grade 6 represented our school at the Royal Botanic Gardens to spend a day learning about Biomimicry. Biomimicry is when people use inspiration from nature to design new things. One great example of this is velcro. George de Mestral, a Swiss electrical engineer, invented velcro in 1941, after getting burrs stuck in his socks while walking in the Alps. He noticed the hook and loop design of the prickles, and used the idea for this very useful invention. We also learnt about how kingfisher birds inspired a solution to the sonic boom caused by the Shinkansen Bullet Train coming out of tunnels. Our students spent time learning about clever functions on banksia trees and came up with inventions based on this. Raven and Ava thought of insulation for walls based on the interlocking ability of banksia flowers. Lucas and Charles designed heat activated sheets of wax for polishing decks and outdoor wooden furniture. They were interested in how banksia plants have self-healing waxes that liquify and seal up cracks on hot days.