Ipswich North State School: Young EcoMarines ambassadors talk climate action

A team of 10-year-olds from Ipswich North State School are leading the way to a cleaner and more sustainable future.

Four young Ipswich students are paving the way for climate action and helping their classmates and friends become more environmentally conscious.

Nathaniel Carey, 11, Faith Hardaker, 10, Sophie Gardner, 10, and Rebecca Meale, 10, are Ipswich North State School’s EcoMarines ambassadors, participating in a statewide program by Tangalooma EcoMarines.

They pick up rubbish around their school and, in Sophie’s words, “help the environment, help save the animals, and help the community”.

“I think saving the environment is pretty cool and it’s good to help nature,” Sophie said.

“Every week, we run this competition where whoever has the cleanest area … we say who is the cleanest class and they will get a reward.”

As part of the ‘cleanest area in the school’ competition, the young ambassadors look for the areas with the least rubbish across the campus and present the cleanest grade with an award during school assembly.

Nathaniel said it was crucial students, and people more generally, improve their littering habits.

“If we litter, the world will die and we’ll have no way to survive if all the trees die and all the animals die,” he said.

Sophie said her and her fellow ambassadors often found chip packets, LCM bar packets, poppa straws, and pieces of plastic around the school yards, which was a worry considering birds often visited the school.

“A lot of the environment helps us. Animals create meat, trees create paper, plants create fruit and veggies,” she said.

“There are a lot of birds around … and we don’t want them to come and chew our plastic up and die.”

Ipswich North State School Year 5 students and EcoMarines ambassadors Rebecca Meale, Sophie Gardner, Faith Hardaker, and Nathaniel Carey with their ‘Colouring for a Cause’ book. Picture: Jessica Baker / The Queensland Times

Rebecca said littering could only lead to a stressed climate.

“The more rubbish that goes into our earth, the hotter the climate gets,” she said.

“Because the more it goes underground, the hotter the underground’s going to get and it’s just not going to work well.”

The young ambassadors also helped organise a colouring competition, for which the student community was invited to submit a colouring-in page with the theme ‘litter and rubbish’.

The winning entries were published in a colouring book, which has since been used to promote mindfulness and remind students to responsibly dispose of their rubbish.

Sophie said her class began learning about climate change earlier this year, as well as how products are made and what can be recycled.

“And we also learned about why it’s important to clean the environment,” she said.

All four students are fiercely passionate about “saving the world” and protecting the environment, and said they will take what they have learned as ambassadors with them into the future.

“I want to be a boss of Coles or Woolworths and make it sustainable and help save the earth,” Nathaniel said.

Rebecca and Sophie would both one day like to work as full-time EcoMarine ambassadors with Tangalooma EcoMarines, and Faith would like to be a teacher.

General manager of Tangalooma EcoMarines Penny Limbach said the organisation was very proud of the passion and commitment the Year 5 students had demonstrated.

“We couldn’t be more proud of the work our brilliant EcoMarines ambassadors at Ipswich North State School have done to drive sustainability initiatives in the local Ipswich community,” she said.

“Supported by Mars Wrigley, the Tangalooma EcoMarines school programs have paved the way for the next generation of environmental leaders and are inspiring other young changemakers to make a positive impact in communities across Queensland.”

Ipswich North State School is one of 78 schools across South East Queensland currently participating in the program which supports about 400 student ambassadors.