One of the many things at Penryn College that the environmental leaders find difficult is the number of plastic bottles and plastic things that get thrown away each day.  Even though a lot of this gets recycled the students thought they might do something a bit more interesting with the waste we produce so they decided to team up with the art department and create a piece of recyled art.

The first step was to ask the school to collect as much waste plastic as they could, from bottles to lids, bags to toys.  No-one expected the school to respond the way they did with over thirty bags of plastic waste collected in a single week.

With the art team the students …

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Jane Goodall is excited. “Have you heard?” she says, as we eat lunch in the restaurant at Compton Acres in Poole. “We’ve been shortlisted for an Oscar!” She is referring to the film about her life, Jane’s Journey, which had its UK premiere at Bournemouth University. 

The scientist, conservationist and UN International Messenger of Peace, Dr Jane Goodall, DBE, spends 300 days a year travelling the world raising environmental awareness. In between trips she still lives in her family home in Bournemouth, and she is at Compton Acres for a very special event. The Jane Goodall Rose, described as the ‘ultimate romantic flower’ has been created by Christian Hanak and La Roseraie Guillot. Jane planted the first of 400 of these …

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The Roots & Shoots programme is ‘About making positive change happen’ and so is everyone at St Christopher’s Roots & Shoots is also about creating a ‘Supportive environment where young people come together to share ideas and inspiration’ just like St Christopher’s. Roots & Shoots encourages ‘young people like us to implement successful community service projects and participate in special events, so do St Christopher’s. We haven’t achieved global domination but we’ve defiantly caught the attention of most in our county and the nation beyond that. We have tried to make all we do appealing to everyone – from listeners of BBC Radio Lancashire to the fans of football; to primary school pupils and to the old folks of nursing homes.

Naturally to get …

Read all of Our Roots & Shoots group (what was and is and is to come!)

Brookwood, our school caterers, have worked alongside our Green Team discussing ideas and listening to the students concerns. Together we have come up with reusable lunch bags in hopes of reducing our waste. Our food is bought from sustainable organisations and a booklet has been produced to explain these initiatives to the children and parents.

It would have been really cool to have been able to unfurl a giant dove and hold it aloft as we have seen other Roots & Shoots teams do in celebration of Peace Day; but it wasn’t to be, and as we had already made plans to undertake a Day of Peace event in a local shopping centre on the 25th of September we were still able to raise awareness and collect peace pledges.
         
With upwards of 15,000 people passing through the area we were in, on any given Sunday, we felt it …

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After a really successful summer of growing on the College Farm, our Green team took their produce to the Helston Farmers Market to join the other small holders and growers in the area. Our shop sold the best of our fruit and veg as well as our very own Penryn chilly pickle and Elderflower champagne.  Not only were people selling but the students got the opportunity to watch a range of cooking exhibitions, take part in a variety of growing activities and discuss all things sustainable with local community action groups.

We all had a great day and thanks to Helston School for holding a brilliant event.

A national campaign by NHS Forests encourages all parts of the community to go outside and enjoy their local environment as part of their healthy lifestyle.  The project pledges to plant a tree for every employee of the NHS, the largest employer in Europe.

As part of this campaign our Green Team has linked up with our local hospital in Falmouth and have helped them create a new garden area for the staff and patients of the hospital.  Over the last few weeks we have been back to see how the garden has progressed and helped the patients maintain its shape and keep the weeds down.

The best part of the whole experience has been watching our young students working alongside the …

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In order to raise awareness of how easy it is to grow your own fruit and vegetables St. Christopher’s C.E High School is producing a calendar. The calendar will inform its owner of what time of year to sow, plant out and harvest a variety of around 30 fruits and vegetables which we feel are both easy to grow and tasty. Every month there will also be a seasonal recipe which will incorporate the fruit and vegetables which need harvesting that month. The recipes which we are using in the calendar are going to be chosen from a competition starting in school in September. Pupils will have the chance to bring in a family favourite recipe from home which will …

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Community
Our team is becoming increasingly recognisable and our new uniforms and vehicle logos have helped establish our identity to the public; we are getting more and more feedback from them with regards what it is they have done either as a direct result of previous contact with us, or because someone they know has spoken to them about us.  Consequently we have also received many requests and offers to either enter into partnership with other groups or undertake an event for them. Whilst this is enormously flattering it also places an enormous strain on a team such as ours with no external resources and extremely limited man power. However, we are slowly evolving a plan whereby …

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Part Three
Community
The greater part of our endeavour over the last few months has undoubtedly been our investment in community issues, highlighting the need for greater endeavour with regards the care of our environment and local wildlife. The team have taken part in public awareness days, carried out workshops with numerous youth organisations and raised the profile of Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Programme where ever and whenever we can.

We have fostered closer ties with our American Partner Group Seneca and if it had not been for some unavoidable delays would already …

Read all of Spring Round Up 2011