Making Masks with VCAL
As part of our Personal Development Skills Project, the Senior VCAL students identified an environmental issue in the community of the need to have more reusable masks to lower the amount of waste being produced by the disposable masks being left around as rubbish on the ground.
We spent a lot of time researching the health benefits of protecting yourself from COVID-19 by wearing a mask, investigated different opinions in the community of people who don’t believe they should have to wear a mask (The Bunnings “Karen”) and also had some great discussions in our class about their opinions about this issue and the whole Pandemic in general.
Over the course of a few weeks, we put together some photos of the community where we saw a lot of these masks lying around on the ground and not being disposed of properly. If people were to wear fabric reusable masks, this would reduce the amount of waste produced and make the environment look and feel a lot better!
We started by contacting some local charities in the Dandenong community, asking if they would take donations of hand-sewn masks. Unfortunately they were not in a position to accept these, so we decided to focus on our own families as a start. Then, when we return to school (hopefully) in Term 4, we can help the wider school community as well.
We were very lucky to receive some very generous donations of fabric from a few stores in the Melbourne area. Ms Hipwell then also provided the extra supplies needed for this project such as needles, thread and elastic. We were lucky to receive our care packages needed to complete this project!
We first did some preparations with the fabric, getting the pattern cut out and ready, and then we were ready to learn how to make our masks
Cutting out the Pattern
We made a connection with Tamara from Laneway Community Centre, who was able to help us with our project. She taught us on a live Webex call, and spent an hour with us, teaching us how to make our masks.
Learning how to make masks
It was such a great activity, everyone was really engaged in the lesson and felt really proud of our achievement!
The finished masks
Hopefully, when we are able to return to school, we will use the sewing machines to provide more masks to the students at school so we can all stay safe during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Senior VCAL Class