Stage 1 have been inquiring into what our responsibility is to sustain Earth’s natural resources. We have been acting like scientists by observing and recording data on the weather and soil moisture. Last week we turned our attention to what our responsibility is for looking after waste.

Recently at Newington Lindfield there has been a change in our bin system and how we manage our waste, however we have noticed that many boys are still putting their food waste and paper in the landfill bin. We realised that perhaps many of the boys did not understand the importance of the bins and decided that this would provide an excellent opportunity to teach the boys about waste responsibility. It would also give them an interesting insight into just how much food waste we throw away on a daily basis and perhaps come up with a solution for all this waste.

We gathered in the Year 1 classroom, the boys unsure as to what exactly we would be doing. When Ms K and I asked Damon Chen to empty the first landfill bin onto the floor he was understandably hesitant suspecting some sort of teacher trap, however, after reassuring him that there would be no repercussions for doing so he gleefully upended the bin with gusto. This was followed by 5 more enthusiastic boys emptying the contents of their bins on the floor until we had a sizeable pile of smelly rubbish.

Then came the fun part! Donning rubber gloves the boys sifted through the rubbish, separating the contents into paper, plastic, landfill and food waste. There was plenty of discussion as to which pile certain items should go in, and plenty of laughter and cries of disgust whenever someone came across a particularly fragrant bit of rubbish. When the dust settled the boys were able to see for themselves just how much of each type of rubbish we would throw into landfill every day at Newington.

The majority was paper, followed by food waste, plastic and lastly landfill. This led to a discussion as to what responsibility we have to reduce this waste. We decided that we had to make sure that all paper goes in the paper recycling bin, especially the paper bags that come with the lunch orders. We knew that plastic also goes in a recycling bin and that some of the older boys are investigating this. The big conundrum was food waste. So much of this goes in the landfill bin every day and after our investigations into soil we know how important decomposed organic waste is to soil health. Some of the boys suggested that we could collect all the waste and put it in the worm farm, however other boys quickly countered this by pointing out that there is no way the worms could break down that much food every day. After further discussion we hit upon the light bulb moment that we could collect the food waste from each class and put it in the new school compost containers.

After consulting with Mr Czerwenka and Mr Barrington-Higgs, the Stage 1 boys have been given the responsibility of rolling out the new organic waste bins at Newington. These little bins will sit in each classroom and the boys can put their fruit break scraps in these bins.

Stage 1 are going to create educational posters to let other boys know what can go in them. It will then be our responsibility to collect these bins at the end of every day and distribute it amongst the compost bins and worm farms.

This will allow the boys to take some personal responsibility for waste and rubbish in their school. As a PYP school we encourage the boys to take action based on information they have gathered in their learning. It was very rewarding to see the shock on boys faces when they finally sorted the piles and saw how much food was thrown away each day. Coming up with a solution for this problem will give the boys the confidence to know that they can make a positive impact in their world, for their future.

Angus Lawson – Year 1 Classroom Teacher