Green Team News
Staying green
School Sustainability Festival
25 students from SKiPPS participated in the 17th School Sustainability Festival organised by the Port Phillip EcoCentre last term. It was a great opportunity to celebrate environmental achievements and acknowledge student leadership within our community.
They participated in student led workshops and activities about environmental sustainability and how we can all take action.
Some of the workshops included Eco Electronics, Murrnong Daisies: Revegetation to Reconciliation, Biomimicry and Misunderstood Magical Mistletoe.
Students also learnt about the 6 seasons, water bugs, endangered species and how to create a seed ball.
We created and presented our own workshop about indigenous plants and how to make a pollinator hotel.
Try our TRUE OR FALSE Quiz to learn about native pollinators
- There are more than 1,500 species of Australian pollinating insects. TRUE
- The blue banded bee has bands of metallic blue fur across their black abdomens. TRUE
- The blue banded be is about 7mm long FALSE - They are acutely 11mm long
- Blue Banded bees can perform a special type of pollination called ‘buzz pollination’ TRUE – Buzz pollination basically involves creating a vibration in the flower of the plant so that it will release its pollen. The blue-banded bee is one of these buzz pollinators.
- Many native bees and insects do not live in hives but nest and lay their young in hollow logs, twigs, old plant stems or cracks in the wall. TRUE
- The blue banded bee are non-aggressive and are virtually stingless. TRUE – They are very different to the European honey bee.
- The cuckoo wasp is similar to the cuckoo bird by taking advantage of others nests to lay their Larvae. TRUE
- The leaf cutter bee cuts holes in plants to eat. FALSE – They actually cut hole to create crates for their larvae
- The cuckoo wasps are only found in the east coast of Australia. FALSE - They are acutely found Australia wide
- Insect hotels are a great way to reintroduce solitary bees and insect pollinators back into our environment? TRUE – Which is why we chose to make them for our school garden!
Although the new indigenous plants have protections covers please remember to stay out of the garden beds and observe pollinator hotels from a distance.
What’s Growing in the Garden?
There’s is plenty growing now spring is here! Take a walk through the garden and see if you can find the following
- broad beans
- potatoes
- silverbeet
- snow peas
- rhubarb
- Alpine strawberries
- warrigal greens
- calendula
- blueberries
- garlic
- celery
- parsley
- chocolate mint and lots of other herbs
Please remember to leave the flowers for the bees! They help pollinate our patch!
There are lots of seedlings ready to be transplanted into the garden beds and a lot of weeding to do. If you are free Monday mornings and enjoy getting your hands dirty, please come along and help Allison in the garden.
What’s Cooking?
The Year 3/4s enjoyed cooking Parsley Pesto and Choc Beetroot Cupcakes in the final weeks of term. Check out the recipes and try it at home!
Walktober – October is Walk to School Month!
Getting children in the habit of walking or riding is a great way to help them feel good and lead healthy active lifestyles. It also helps to relieve traffic pressures outside schools and improve safety as well as reduce our ecological footprints.
Our school is participating in the community challenge and all classes have received calendars to record how active our students are.
At the end of the month the calendars will be collected and prizes will be allocated out. The winning school will receive an active travel prize and the winning student a $250 voucher! You may remember that we won the smoothie bike back in 2019. Let’s see if we can be winners again this year.
Remember ‘part way’ is ok! We understand it may not be feasible to always walk or ride. Try to set a goal each week or walk part way instead.
The next Sustainability Committee Meeting will be held on Tuesday 11th October in Lil’s room at 3.45pm. All are welcome to attend to continue working on our way to become a ResourceSmart School!
