Earth Children & Eco-Schools Green Flag Award 2015

Earth Children Teacher-in-charge: Ms Jackie Chambers Head: Jessica Smith

Earth Children had a fabulously productive 2015! Our goal for the year was to be a dripping tap at Rustenburg. This sounds ironic, coming from the Earth Children, but the thought was that we would be a consistent source of awareness for our school…and judging by all that we’ve accomplished in the year’s events, our dripping tap created a small river!

2015 marked the achievement of our internationally recognized Green Flag, a progressive award focusing on sustainability and requiring a joint effort from all those at Rustenburg. This green flag is a Gold equivalent, having achieved our Bronze and Silver in the previous two years.

The Eco-Schools ceremony took place at Lotus River Secondary School followed by a flag-raising ceremony some weeks later at school, so that Rustenburg could understand the achievement.

Other exciting events: The Earth Children Committee and Society went on a lovely hike in Newlands forest on a Saturday morning during the time the Cape was ravaged by the raging fires. The girls met at the Fire Base and donated needed items to the firefighters before embarking on the hike.

A well-supported beach clean-up took place at Milnerton. There was a turnout of 30 passionate eco-warriors ready to pick up all the fragments that endanger marine life.

The Interact Society kindly allowed Earth Children to sell Proteas (donated from Sasha Marais’ farm) at the Mother-Daughter tea. The mums, grannies and girls were delighted at the bright pink flowers that they bought as gifts for each other on the day. The proceeds of this fundraiser went towards a future tree-planting venture.

2015 also marked a union between the Bishops Interact Society and Earth Children. The Bishops boys visited Rustenburg for a tour of our grounds led by our brilliant campus manager, Mr Siebrits. The boys were astounded at just how cleverly one can adapt a school to lessen the carbon footprint. Hopefully it served as inspiration for adaptations they can make at Bishops. The tour was followed by a Liesbeek River clean-up in which the boys and girls waded into the water to remove rubbish. This friendship between Bishops and Rustenburg continued in another river clean-up in which 35 black bags of rubbish were retrieved from the Black River! This fight isn’t a glamorous one but we do it with passion.

The latest event was a healthy bake-sale as Earth Children is passionate about healthy living in all spheres of life. The delicacies included canapés, vegan brownies, gluten-free chocolate cake and veggie pasta. The sale was well-supported and R1100 profit was made in support of the SPCA.

The weekly activities of Earth Children included a Tuesday meeting in which the Eco Reps and society met and shared ideas. This interaction resulted in each class receiving a class cactus, kindly donated by Alex van Niekerk’s father; this plant was gifted to create a sense of communal concern for plant life. Each cactus received a unique name and had to be looked after by the class (the idea is similar to a class pet).

Mrs Heel, an eco-savvy art teacher, gave the girls a DIY workshop on upcycling everyday items into creative beautiful items. T-shirts were turned into scarves and bottles transformed into baskets and jewellery holders. In addition to the laminated reminders on every light switch in the school, signs were also placed on the paper towel dispensers in the bathroom. This was an effort to reduce girls wasting a valuable resource: our trees. More recycling bins were also placed all over the school.

Tuesday meetings also prompted motivated Eco Reps to share lists they’d compiled of their favourite secondhand shops and ethical-food suppliers and other topics of interest.

Bread tags continued to be collected for the wheel-chairs and cell phone battery collections were emphasised. It is vital to recycle batteries properly and safely because of their radioactive nature. The bottle top collection came to a close this year and the individually decorated bottle tops were used to enhance the entrance of the food garden. The Eco Reps wrote their environmental goal on a piece of scrap paper and enclosed it at the back of the bottle top. Rubbish can be used to beautify spaces if it is used creatively.

The Earth Children Committee was proud of their consistency throughout 2015. We aimed to nourish the minds of the girls of Rustenburg. Our slow and steady presence definitely changed some blue wings green.