Climate activism: Our primary-school kids make a difference in the world
Quest Newspapers spoke to primary school and Year 8 students from across southeast Queensland to find out what they think about climate change and what they’re doing to help stop it. From nude lunches to recycling paper and school strikes, they are stepping up to the challenge.
Gemma Anderson, Year 8
“Individuals can only do the actions they’re educated to do, so we all need to be educated about our impact on the climate,’’ Gemma said.
“We all know about the monetary value of an item, but not many of us know its impact.’’
Gemma said Stuartholme students had come up with two simple ways they could help the planet — recycling in classrooms and encouraging “nude’’ lunches.
“I’ve been doing nude lunches as an individual. We (her family) don’t have much plastic (wrap) and use a lot of containers, but I’ve noticed most students have at least one plastic-wrapped item.
“So we decided to raise awareness about wrapping of lunch items, from week four of this term.’’
Gemma said she was so surprised when she found out how many resources went into making paper that they had also started recycling in the classroom.
“My Dad is very motivated about sustainability — he has worm farms and recycles paper and things like that,’’ she said.
“I think we can tackle climate change but everybody has to take part.’’
The nude lunch day project was organised by Gemma’s fellow Year 8 students, Toohey, Macrae and Stuart, who want everyone to bring in a morning tea and lunch that has zero packaging.
Gemma said an average student used three pieces of wrapping a day, adding up to 30kg per year.
The paper recycling project was organised by Year 8 students Parker, Woodlock and Coen.
Gemma also said she wanted to go to the Climate Strike in May, but had a maths test.
IPSWICH NORTH STATE SCHOOL
Nathaniel Carey, 11, Faith Hardaker, 10, Sophie Gardner, 10, and Rebecca Meale, 10, are Ipswich North State School’s EcoMarines ambassadors who are 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 others, stopped littering.
“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.”
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.
IRONSIDE STATE SCHOOL, INDOOROOPILLY
Ironside State School captains Alankrita Mishra and Aaron Ding admit they’re worried about a warming world, but they’re doing something about it and think even a problem that big can be addressed.
“I think it’s kind of scary. All of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports are saying the temperature is increasing by a rapid amount,’’ Alankrita said.
“It’s a bit overwhelming but if we all work together and do our part we can make a difference.’’
She said her family was big on sustainability and tried to reduce their climate impact with little actions every day including such things as turning on their washing machine only when it was full.
Aaron said he was concerned the planet’s future was at stake.
“I’ve heard about the latest climate change news, the Glasgow summit. I feel a little bit worried about how it’s going to affect the future,’’ he said.
“The news is talking about how humanity’s future is hanging in the balance.
“I think we can solve this crisis but it’s hard to know where to start.’’
His family did their bit by not buying over-packaged food and other simple actions they took around the house.
For example, they recently had a big clean-up. Instead of throwing things out, they held a garage sale so discarded items could be reused by others.
HUMPYBONG STATE SCHOOL, MARGATE
Students at Humpybong State School can elect to participate in the Eco Marines program.
Indie Hoope, Amie Ito, Chloe Page and Ocean Wilkins have helped organise many events to help protect the environment at school including Earth Hour, Clean Up Australia Day, Wrapper Free Wednesday, recycling promotions and planting trees.
The students all agreed that climate changed needed to stop.
“It is devastating to the environment and animals are losing their homes and dying. This is because they can’t adapt to their environment,” they said.
ROADVALE STATE SCHOOL
Roadvale State School students have found a way to conserve the environment using only their daily packed lunches.
Known affectionately as their special ‘Bin Chicken’, the prep-year 1 class is composting their leftover scraps in an effort to look after the environment.
Food waste currently makes up approximately 40 per cent of all waste from kerbside collection that ends up in landfill.
Acting Roadvale State School Principal Simon Bliss said reducing waste is part of Roadvale State School students’ everyday routine with classroom recycling, containers for change, worm farms, vegetable gardens, and now even a ‘Bin Chicken’.
“Our Prep-Year 1 Class, affectionately known as the PiPs, introduced a special bin for food scraps called the Bin Chicken and every day they save all food scraps from our fruit break and lunch for the Hawkins’ family to take home for their chickens,” Mr Bliss said.
“Our school is committed to lowering its environmental footprint. We reduce our mains energy consumption by using a highly efficient heat-pump hot water system and solar power, in addition to rain water tanks and our Brigalow tree revegetation project.
Early Years Teacher Kylie Peel said the PiPs were happy to accept donations of recyclable items from the local Scenic Rim community to use in their learning activities.
“We recycle all of our cardboard and paper in the coloured bins provided and we are water wise as we need to save our tank water,” she said.
“We are also planning a PiPs garden where we can plant and grow native plants and flowers to feed our birds, including our resident magpie Matilda and native bees which are at home in our school’s Native Bee Hotel, made from reclaimed materials.”
Roadvale State School is among the first of the Scenic Rim schools to get behind Council’s Reimagine Waste Poster Competition.
Entries can be submitted as drawings, photos and designs. Videos can also be provided as supporting information so there is an opportunity for children of all ages and abilities to take part.
Prizes include vouchers to work towards zero waste goals and a winner’s trophy made from reclaimed materials. Entries open 5 October and close 5 November 2021. Winners announced during National Recycling Week (8-14 November).
BULIMBA STATE SCHOOL
Grade 6 student Stephanie McLaughlin said climate change was an important issue to her, so she joined an environment group called EcoMarine to help make a difference at her school.
“EcoMarines is a group of people who like to volunteer to look after the environment,” she said.
“At the moment, we’ve introduced organic and recycling bins around the school, and we educate our students and teachers about what goes in which bin.
“Once we showed videos and went to the bins to help some of the younger kids and show them how to do it too, most of them got the hang of it.”
Her classmate Isla Mulquiney says she was also concerned about climate change and had been attending climate strikes on top of learning about the issue at school.
“It was very cool to see how many young people now know climate change is a thing because there are still a lot of kids who haven’t been educated by their parents on the topic,” she said.
“Being able to be a part of something so big and worldwide felt really cool.”
BROOKFIELD STATE SCHOOL
Year 5 Brookfield State School student, Saxon Chappell, said he was worried climate change
would gravely affect his future.
“Global temperatures have been rising by approximately 0.08 degrees Celsius per decade since 1880, faster still in the past 40 years,’’ he said.
“We are already feeling the impacts with extreme weather, such as bush fires, droughts, floods, and rising sea levels, which is driving people from their homes and causing food and water shortages on a global scale.
“When I grow up, I want to become an aeronautical engineer, working on specialised drones which can potentially remove harmful greenhouse gases from our atmosphere.
“Climate change is everyone’s problem and needs to be tackled on a global scale.
“We need our politicians to meet the world climate targets and we need action now.
“As individuals we can all make a difference by lobbying the government and big business, reducing waste, and using green energy.’’
Environmental captains Lucy Jessup and Angus Fraser said climate change was a big problem but needed to be solved.
“If we don’t act now the world we’re living in will change before our eyes, extreme weather events, sea levels rising, endangering animals and their habitat,’’ they said.
“We are doing many things at the school, like putting in native bees, compost bins, worm farms, 10c bottle bins, and collecting bread tags to be melted down into plates and bowls.’’
Year 6 student Alex Scott said if climate change continued on the same course as it was now going, it would “ruin our future’’.
“Sea level rise, mass extinctions, more extreme weather events and crop losses – meaning no food,’’ he said.
“Imagining telling my grandchildren about what rhinos used to look like is not my idea of a successful future for humanity.
“On an individual level, people can compost or recycle to help, but on a larger scale, spreading the word and putting pressure on the government will greatly improve humanity’s
capability to respond to the climate crisis by, for example, switching to more renewable energy faster.
“I say to decision makers: don’t kill our hopes by killing the planet.’’
Rivers of mud and rock hit LA fire zones after big rain
Suburbs decimated by the California wildfires have gone from smoldering to flooded after a powerful rainstorm turned scorched hillsides into rivers of mud and rocks.
Big move for ‘under the pump’ industry
A historic first in one state has been described as a “solid step towards a fairer future” for one group of Australian workers facing challenges.