Eco Schools
The Lord Mayor of Belfast visited school and went to the wood with some of the Eco Council. He is interested in litter reduction.
Mrs Lynch talked to Nursery and the P1s about her bees. She told them how she looked after them and collected honey.
We had a 'Ditch the Dark' day to encourage active travel and to be seen and safe on our roads. Lots of boys and girls walked, cycled and scooted to school in their hi-vis vests and really enjoyed their journey. Active travel reduces our carbon emissions and helps to tackle climate change. Johnny from Sustrans ran a 'Dr Bike' session to kindly fix up our bikes. Let's keep it up Hazelwood, be active, be safe, be seen, stay cool!
Another exciting year of Eco Schools, our Eco council are ready to make the school and world a greener place. We have had 2 meetings already, discussing our topics of biodiversity, climate change and waste. We are looking forward to getting green fingers through working on our 'Live here Love here' Pollinator grant.
We are also taking part in Sustrans National Standard Cycling training, reducing our carbon footprints!
'Please check out our Eco council's new video on one of our important Eco school topics: 'Biodiversity'. Enjoy!'
A story from our Eco Committee, not to be wasted!"
Over the lead up to Christmas, Hazelwood boys and girls worked hard to reduce their carbon footprints through the 'Journey to Santa' challenge.
From here to the North Pole is approx. 2500 miles and we wanted to see if we could cover that distance between 29th November and 17th December...To do this, our pupils ditched the car, went outside and got active!
Each class logged their daily miles, active time outside, and their 'green' travel (e.g. walking to school). Miss Scott's Primary 2 class achieved the highest number of miles by far - well done to all of you!
Let's not stop at reaching Santa though, let's see if we can cover the whole world and in doing so care for our wonderful planet!
#Hazelwood let's treat the planet as we should#
Thursday 2nd December was a 'Green Day' in school
- Children wore something green on 'Green Day' and supported our 'Journey to Santa' by walking. cycling or using the bus to get to school.
- The children brought in a 'zero waste' lunch and were encouraged to eat all of their snack/lunch and to not waste any food!
- An Eco Assembly took place on ‘Green Day’ and the Eco Committee taught the rest of the school our Eco Code
- Children were taught about Climate Change, and what steps we can take to help, such as walking to school; turning off chargers; having ‘zero waste’ lunch; using refillable water bottles (everyone has received a 'Refillution' NI Water Bottle).
- The Eco Committee have done a school audit to see if our understanding of Climate Change has increased since the assembly, and guess what - it has! Fantastic!
Thank you everyone for engaging with our great ‘Green Day!’
The Eco Committee had a visit from Pat from NI Water. We learned about the importance of not using single use plastics, as these often end up in our oceans. Alarmingly, if we continue to use plastic the way we do, scientists predict that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish...
Guess how long it takes each 'single use' plastic water bottle to eventually biodegrade?
450 YEARS!
To being to tackle this, the Eco Committee are giving out reusable water bottles to every child in our school.
We invite you to join the "Refillution" by refilling up your reusable bottles, reducing, and recycling.
Come on Hazelwood, let's treat the planet as we should!​
"It's surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth."
​​​​​​​​Sir David Attenborough​
Here in Hazelwood Integrated Primary School, we are committed to caring for our planet Earth. Our Eco-Council are working together to make our school and community more Eco-friendly. Our Eco-Council are made up of elected pupils from P4-P7, who also serve as Eco-mentors to KS1 and Nursery classes. We are very proud to be an Eco-school, yet recognise there is so much more to do for our world. Together, our small actions can make a big change for our world and all that lives in it.
Please check out this page to keep up to date with all of our Eco news!
Eco News
Eco-Council’s First Meeting
Our Eco Committee members will be pairing up with KS1 and Nursery to share announcements and support each class in being Eco:
- P4 Eco Committee members paired up with Nursery: Amelia, Toby, Kerian, Rita
- P5 Eco Committee members paired up with Primary 1: Rylan, Kora, Michelle, Fabian
- P6 Eco Committee members paired up with Primary 2: Amy, Riley, Emer, Jorja
- P7 Eco Committee members paired up with Primary 3: Charlie, Kara, Nibras, Laurie
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Congratulations to our Eco-Code Poster winners from P4, P5, P6, and P7. These gorgeous posters are going to every class to help everyone learn and remember our school Eco Code:
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Our school are learning about Climate Change and took part in WWF's 'Tree of Promises' campaign. Every class made a 'Promise to the Planet' to help combat Climate Change. These Promises (on Promise Leaves) have been flown over to Glasgow to the COP26 Summit, and could get shared by WWF to world leaders. To find out more, please go to: https://www.wwf.org.uk/get-involved/schools/forest-of-promises We have made a school tree of our 'Promises to the Planet' to remember the promises we made together. #Let's treat the Planet as we should# |
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Every class has planted potatoes. The children are helping to water and look after them. We are all so excited to see them grow.
P4 went bug hunting in the woods
RSPB Bird Count
Many of our classes were out birdwatching as part of the RSPB bird count at the end of January. The Nursery even made binoculars for their little teddies.
Our Eco Code 2018/19
This year is our 8th year as an Eco-School and we are hoping to receive our 4th Green flag. Here’s what we have been doing recently in Hazelwood with Eco-Schools.
More information about the Eco-Schools Programme can be found at http://www.eco-schoolsni.org/
Biodiversity (wildlife):
Many of our classes have been making bird feeders and hanging it up around the school grounds. The gardening club made Minion bird feeders.
We have been learning about different types of birds in our local environment. We used an app called ‘Pic Collage’ to insert photos of birds we might find locally and labelled each one correctly. We then used our binoculars to take a walk around the school grounds to see if we could spot any birds nearby.
P2 made binoculars and went up to the woodland bird watching. They kept count of how many birds they saw for the RSPB’s Big Schools Birdwatch.
Hedgehogs are currently in decline across the UK. In the 1950’s there was approximately 36.5 million hedgehogs in Britain. Today it seems likely that there are fewer than 1 million hedgehogs left.
What can we do to help? Watch this YouTube video on how to help hedgehogs in your garden.
Energy
We have been monitoring our solar panels to see how much energy we are saving. Have a look at our eco notice board in school to see our figures.
Here are some tips on how to save energy and how to reduce waste at home! http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/rrr.html
Mr Mc Daid’s class have been learning about renewable sources of energy. They made solar panel powered fans and also made wind powered buggies, which they raced in the playground.
We were given this bird house to add to our school grounds and the ECO council decided to place it at the front of the school to attract the local birds. We then went on to make our own bird feeders for the birds to eat.
Space seeds
P6 are soon to be receiving their Rocket Seeds from RHS gardening. The pupils will grow approximately 200 seeds and monitor their growth. The purpose of the experiment is to see whether zero gravity affects the growth of seeds. To ensure it is a fair test some schools will be given seeds that have been in space and others will be given seeds that have remained on earth. The space seeds spent time on the International Space Station with scientist and astronaut, Sir Tim Peake.
Watch this space to see our seeds’ progress.
Watch a video from Sir Tim Peake by clicking on this link.
Our Space Seeds have arrived and are already beginning to grow in the P6 classrooms.
Litter
We are a litter free school. Please throw any rubbish in the bins around the school. Our pupils are often out collecting litter that blows in through the school gates.
P4 carried out an investigation into what makes up the litter in our school grounds. Apparently bottles were the most common items of litter found.
Captain Clean Up
School Grounds
The gardening club have been trying to tidy up the school garden. They have planted trees, pulled up weeds and have even started to paint the shed. Lots more work to be done.
Meet Fauna, our Eco Warrior Scarecrow. She was Highly Commended in this year's IEF Garden Show. Mrs Cunningham and the Gardening Club worked hard to make sure she was made completely from recycled materials. Well done!
Visit IEF's Facebook page to see Fauna and the other Scarecrows in Antrim's Castle Grounds.
https://www.facebook.com/IntegratedEducationFund/photos/
Neon Nights 2016
We celebrated our first Sustrans event earlier in the year by having a Neon Nights event. Well done to everyone who took part.
You could write “Making Bug Hotels in our gardens”
Here is our eco council receiving our bronze Sustrans award in September from Johnny. Lets hope this September we will be receiving our Silver.
Transport
This is our 2nd year in the Sustrans programme. We will soon be getting a new bicycle shelter in the P5-P7 playground. Johnny from Sustrans has kindly donated lots of prizes for the opening. So please ride your scooters or bikes to school and if your bike has a tag attached during the day - you have won a prize.
Wish you were able to carry out basic maintenance on your bike? Click on the link below = to find out how to do an M check on your bike.
Also watch out for upcoming Dr Bike sessions as an after school club.
Our action plan 2015/2016
After our Green Swat Team (The Eco Council) inspected rooms at break time today they checked for a number of things. We looked to see if whiteboards, lights, taps, computers or chargers had been left on over break time when no adult was in the room. Miss McMillan’s class were the winners. Congratulations to all boys and girls. You are doing a great job to save energy .
We celebrated Earth Hour last month! We switched off all the lights in the school for one hour to highlight the importance of helping our world by saving energy.
Our Eco warriors continuing to promote our Eco message at home. A fabulous bird feeder made out of recyclable materials.
Green Day
This year we asked for a donation of £1 per child as part of our ‘wear green day’. This money went towards twinning our school toilets with a school block in Rumphi District, Malawi, Africa.
‘Thank you for helping to flush away poverty! Your gift of £243.00 will help some of the world's poorest people gain access to safe sanitation, clean water and hygiene education.By supporting Toilet Twinning’s vital water and sanitation work, you’re helping to do something about the fact that 2.3 billion people don’t have somewhere safe and hygienic to go to the loo.’
At Hazelwood we understand and value the importance of helping those in need. We are so grateful to be a position where we can help make a positive difference to others less off. A big thank you to all the boys and girls in Hazelwood for their generosity.
