ECO CLUB
ECO Club
Welcome to St Joseph's ECO CLub page. We are looking forward to a busy 19/20 with lots of exciting environmental projects and activities for the children to be involved in.
We meet every Tuesday after school and the children share ideas, take part in worships and have lots of fun!!
Projects for the coming year include:
Recycling T-shirts
''We took an old t--shirt and we cut off the sleeves then cut off the labels. Next we cut small strips in the bottom and tied knots in them sealing up any gaps. Last we put colourful beads under the knot.
Litter Monitors
We will ensure there are litter monitors in each playground to assist , teach and encourage everyone to look after their environment.
ECO Monitors
We aim to have ECO monitors in each class to monitor recycling and energy saving
ECO CLUB 2017 - 2018
ECO Club 21st Sep 2017
For the first meeting of ECO club this academic year, the club discussed what it mean't to be in ECO club and why we have it and what our priorities for the year would be. ECO club made pledges for the year and put them on our 'pledgehog'
-Educate the rest of the school about recycling
- Help environment
- Tidy up school and environment
We also agreed on our fundraising focus for this year. It will be Hedgehog Bottom , a hedgehog hospital in Thatcham.
Hedgehog 19th October 2017
This week the children started on their fundraiser project this year which is aiming to raise money to support Hedgehog Bottom, a hedgehog hospital and rescue centre based in Thatcham.
We intend to run a fundraising event each term with a view to raising £50 over the school year.
The children worked hard to make a Hedgehog moneybank out of recycled materials. They have then taken this home to collect any loose change they are able to.
Thursday 16th November
This week the children spent time finishing off their Bug Hotel ready for winter. They also put out the bird feeders made last week out of recycled milk bottles.
Thursday 18th January 2018
Having great fun and getting very sticky making apple bird feeders to put in our Woodland Area!
5th October 2017
This week we met up again with 'Growing Newbury Green' a local group dedicated to encouraging local communities in Newbury to grow food in open spaces and share the harvest. There are currently 5 orchards they have planted across Newbury. Last year St Joseph's helped to plant one of these orchards in Orchardene.
In today's ECO club we revisited this Orchard to provided much needed maintenance for the area. Once complete we got to try different varieties of apples which the children very much enjoyed.
BUG Hotel 2nd Nov 2017
This week the children started work on their bug hotel. A tower has been made of pallets, the children began by searching the Woodland area for leaves , sticks and anything we could use to fill our bug hotel. However before we could begin to fill the bug hotel up it already had a little resident...can you see what it is?
Edible Garden Project 2018
St Joseph's School have been lucky enough to have received a generous offer from a local company, that are kindly providing materials, time , labour, expertise knowledge and plants to work with the ECO club to create a mirco forest within the school grounds. The microforest enables us to grow many fruit and veg without a lot of space.
Whats under your feet 12th October 2017
Eco Club are taking part in the What’s under your feet campaign in conjunction with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). This is looking at the impact climate change is having across birds across the UK.
We had to dig up a small patch of the garden and count the number of invertebrates found, worms, slugs, snails etc. We also had to record the number and species of birds identified as many of our popular British birds are in decline. The BTO hopes by finding out what is in our soil and beneath our feet they may be able to identify why as all the data collected is reported to BTO.
We are collecting data at 3 key points across the year October, March and June so that scientists can see if the seasons affect the number of bugs found.
National Bird Nest Week
This week ECO club worked on their Bird Boxes to put in the Woodland Area.
This a fantastic opportunity for the children to learn how grow their own food, to live more sustainably by growing nutricious food without the use of chemicals.
Tristan from Edible Gardens took the time to explain to all the children what they were doing and the children helped to plant apple, pear and plum trees.
Lily B - We learnt not to plant cherry and apple trees together as they need to be watered at different times. Cherry trees can be planted with plum trees and apple trees with pear trees.
Tristan explained rather than use chemicals to kill the aphids on the trees we would plant marigolds around the trees. Ladybirds would be attracted to the marigolds, see the aphids and then eat them, therefore protecting the trees without using chemicals.
Our trees will take 3 years to mature.
Eco-Club 2016-2017
The Eco Club meet once a week after school. Our aim is to encourage better awareness of ways to look after our, school community and earth. The ECO group were tasked with the question
‘’The earth is worth protecting because…..’’
The Eco Group decided they wished our phrase to be
‘’We need to protect Gods Earth’’
The ECO Group have undertaken many activities some of which are shown below;
Litter Picking
ECO club did a fantastic job at helping Mr Tapping our caretaker keep the litter around the school under control, to protect our environment.
The school received a phone call from a member of the public who property backs on to the school. We received lovely comments from the neighbours about her efforts.
Nature
In Eco Club the children built a log pile using recycled wood from around the school to build a home for the bugs and to help wildlife in community.
The school was lucky enough to have some plants donated by Waitrose. The ECO club planted these in our newly refurbished Woodland Area
Scavenger Hunt…What is in our own backyard.?
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Composting
To enable us to recycle we have built a compost bin out of old bits of wood, that is used for garden waste.
Recycling
In our aim to learn about recycling a Bags 2 School collection was arranged with donations from the whole school. An amazing 610 kg of clothes were donated for recycling and a fantastic £240 raised that was used to purchase new science equipment
To learn more about recycling, the ECO team were fortunate to be able to visit the Veolia Education centre at Padworth Recyling plant
Conservation
Waste Week 2015
We were lucky enough to have a visit from Veolia who came to talk to us about being WasteWise. She talked about what we can and can not Compost and tasked the children to go home and look at how they dispose of foodwaste at home
We had a visit from Action for the river who work closely with Thames Water to protect the River Kennet, the key message being Water efficiency and how everyone can help to save water at home and at school to ensure that everyone gets what they need but still ensure there is enough for the wildlife
WW1 Commemoration Poppy Project with Newbury Lions and Newbury Town Council
To commemorate WW1 the Newbury Lions are undertaking projects in schools and around historical sites, St Joseph's school were asked to take part, alongside Newbury Lions we will be planting poppies to create a poppy memorial garden that will continue year after year.
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Newbury Apple Day
In celebration of Newbury Apple Day the ECO club were visited by Tony Hammond who is part of the Growing Newbury Green project that have been responsible for the setting up of various community orchards in Newbury having planted approximately 60 trees so far.
Tony brought along various types of apples for the children to taste to and taught the children how to identify using key features in determining different types of apples, and how to look after the growing apple trees to maximise the harvest.
St Joseph’s ECO club were very pleased to be invited to join their next community project, involving the setup of a new Orchard in Newbury.
Did you know there are between 2-3 thousand different variety of apples in England!!
Butterfly Project
Butterflies are an important part of our eco-system, so our goal this term was to make a butterfly garden in our school nature area.
We aimed to raise money to buy a butterfly kit and release these into our garden.
We wanted to make our garden look great, so we made recycled wind chimes, planted flowers and painted stones to decorate it.
The children made a caterpillar picture made from recycled materials. The children took this home and every time they recycled tins, glass or card or saved water by turning off taps, parents were asked to reward them with a coin to stick on the caterpillar. The children worked really hard and the money raised was used to buy a butterfly kit, we were able to watch the caterpillars grow into butterflies which we were then able to release them into our beautiful butterfly garden we had created. Hopefully we will continue to get wildlife visiting our butterfly garden.
What's under your feet?
Eco Club are taking part in the What’s under your feet campaign in conjunction with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). This is looking at the impact climate change is having across birds across the UK.
We had to dig up a small patch of the garden and count the number of invertebrates found, worms, slugs, snails etc. We also had to record the number and species of birds identified as many of our popular British birds are in decline. The BTO hopes by finding out what is in our soil and beneath our feet they may be able to identify why as all the data collected is reported to BTO.
We are collecting data at 3 key points across the year October, March and June so that scientists can see if the seasons affect the number of bugs found.
Hedgehog Awareness Week
In recognition of Hedgehog awareness week, on Friday 12th May the ECO Club split into two groups with one group working on making their hedgehog houses that they had previously designed and the other group working on making hedgehog planters.
The boys worked really hard with Mr Lucas, treating the wood and assembling the hedgehog houses. The end results are fantastic and we will now be able to place these in the Woodland area to create a safe habitat for the hedgehogs. It was great for the team to be able to see their design come to life.
BTO National Bird Box Week
We used old milk bottle holders to create bird feeders to put in the Woodland area. We also installed two bird houses in the hope we can attract some small birds to nest.
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BUG HUNT
Our trip to the recycling centre at Padworth
Toilet Twinning
The ECO club have decided to raise money to twin our toilet with a toilet in another country.
Did you know…
- 2.5 billion people across the world do not have somewhere safe, clean and hygienic to go to the toilet.
- 1 billion people don’t have access to any sanitation at all
- More than half of primary schools in developing countries don't have access to water and sanitation
- The children recycled toilet roll inners and milk bottle lids to create pig money boxes. They took these home to raise money and awareness on our ‘’Spend a penny save a penny scheme’’
They raised a fantastic £45.50, the PTFA awarded the ECO Club £30 also to help us reach our target. This money was used to twin our toilet. By doing this ECO club have helped to provide clean water and effective sanitisation to some of the worlds poorest countries.
Growing Newbury Green Apple Tree Planting Project
On Friday 31st March 2017 the ECO Club joined forces with Growing Newbury Green on a community project to plant an apple orchard in a residential area near to St Josephs School. Growing Newbury Green are a group dedicated to encouraging local communities in Newbury to grow food in open spaces and sharing the harvest. This orchard is the fifth orchard that the Growing Newbury Green project have planted.
We were joined by various councillors for Clay Hill. The children had a fantastic time ,and thoroughly enjoyed the various tasks digging holes, planting the trees, putting in fertiliser, hammering stakes in and securing fences. They also got to try some apple juice made from a previous harvest which was delicious.
The Eco club will now take it in turns to look after the trees and water them. Hopefully come Autumn we will be apples we will be able to try!
Please take a look at some of the pictures from the afternoon.
Hedgehog awareness week continued
On Friday 19th May we continued our activities in recognition of Hedgehog awareness week, on The ECO Club again split into two groups with one group working on making their hedgehog houses that they had previously designed the second group who made their hedgehog houses last week took the opportunity to spend some time weeding and planting in the Woodland Area
The group treated the wood and assembled the hedgehog houses with the help of Mr Lucas. It was great for the team to be able to see their design come to life and interesting to see a completely different design to last weeks contructions.
The weather held off this week to allow the other group to work outside. It was amazing to see how a little bit of rain in the last couple of weeks had given the plants ( & weeds !! ) a boost.