Archive for March, 2010

Effra Nursery School and Early Years Centre in London joined Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible today.

You can see where Effra Nursery School and Early Years Centre is on a map and read about their local environment here.

Palatine Community Sports College in Blackpool, Lancashire joined Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible today.

You can see where Palatine Community Sports College is on a map and read about their local environment here.

Cornwall College Newquay in Newquay, Cornwall joined Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible today.

You can see where Cornwall College Newquay is on a map and read about their local environment here.

Calling all agents!

For the first time we’ve had such a hard time deciding on a single winner that we’ve awarded TWO Gold Awards! We were so impressed with the scope, dedication and initiative shown in the projects by Ringwood School and the Highlands & Islands Home Facilitator Team that we have decided to award them both Gold Awards. We hope you will find reading about their winning projects as inspiring as we did!

Ringwood School’s One World Project

Starting Small In The Highlands & Islands

Congratulations also to our well-deserving Silver Award winners, Fearnhill School and Coleshill CofE Infants’ School, and our Bronze Award winners, Pembridge Hall School, Webster’s High School and Southridge First School.

Due to the continued high standard …

Read all of Congratulations to our Autumn Term Award Winners!

As we mentioned in our last post, our bird cake recipe is very simple:

Quantities will vary, depending on your needs.

Ingredients:

LARD

WILD BIRD SEED MIX

DRIED FRUIT (AS USED IN BAKING FRUIT CAKES, VERY CHEAP TO BUY)

YOU CAN ALSO ADD NUTS AND CHEESE IF AVAILABLE.

Equipment:

WOODEN SPOON

KNIFE (UNDER SUPERVISION FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN)

CHOPPING BOARD

MIXING BOWL

STRING

YOGHURT POTS

Chop the lard into cubes and mix in with seed and fruit until it binds together. Add small quantities of seed to begin, this avoids making the cakes too dry.

It’s as simple as that! Transfer to bird feeders – recycled yoghurt pots are a good idea, they can be hung up with string.

The whole school took part in Fairtrade Fortnight. We started by having a special assembly about Fairtrade and asked parents if they would take part in this year’s ‘Big Swap’ to change to Fairtrade products. We had a display of everyday Fairtrade items such as tea, coffee, chocolate, sugar and bananas. The older children learnt how these items were produced, writing for instance about cocoa production and how bananas are grown. Some children wrote poems or drew pictures and Fairtrade logos for our display. On the last day we held a Fairtrade tea party. The children played international games in the playground before sitting down to a teaparty of Fairtrade hot chocolate, tea and cakes made with Fairtrade ingredients. …

Read all of Coleshill School’s Fairtrade Fortnight – Mission Update!

The children made pledges for the planet, writing one for each area on a leaf which went on our Roots & Shoots pledge tree. They coloured them green for the environment, brown for people and orange for animals. We had a special whole school circle time to discuss our pledges and talked about how we can all make a difference to our planet.

The Reception Class have been learning about animal habitats near and far.

As part of the opening day events for Penryn College to celebrate our new school, our environmental leaders got together for the day to create a Jungle Frenzy made from willow and tissue paper. 

Students then created jungle creatures out of recycled waste to signify the wide diversity of animals found in our forests.  We then asked students from across the college to write environmental wishes for the future on paper leaves and hang them from the jungle.

A great day and a great way to raise awareness of the need to protect our rainforests and jungles across the earth.

After the cold of Winter the ecology area at Penryn College needed a good clear out.  With plans to develop the pond (full of frog spawn at the moment so no chance of doing it now) we needed to pollard and copice some of the trees, tidy the litter and create log piles for the wildlife.

Some of the students then learnt the art of creating fires using on flints and cotton wool to clear some of the wood from the trees.  Next month we plan to cut out a path so that its easier for all students to access the area and get to the pond.