Healthy Canteen

We dream of healthy and no-waste food available in the college canteen. We realise it is a BIG challenge.

Here are some links to gather information/experience…

• http://www.slowfood.com/education/pagine/eng/pagina.lasso?-id_pg=13
• http://efsqueenstownlakes.blogspot.com/2010/02/edible-gardening-at-todmorden-high.html
• http://www.healthy-kids.com.au/category/10/recipes
• http://www.bing.com/search?q=healthy+food+canteen+school&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC
• That’s Farmocove Intermediate Healthy Canteen Page http://www.farmcove.school.nz/Canteen.html

 

 

Food waste recycling poster

That is our poster, ready to go in classrooms…

What happens in projects is that things do not always go as expected.

We have planned to go twice in Year 7 & 8 assembly but twice the assembly was cancelled. And then the Year 7 were on camp… So our food waste recycling project will be launched at the start of next year.

It is all ready to go and we will persevere!

 

Food Waste Recycling

We are proposing a food waste recycling system. Eventually we would like the whole school to take part, but first we want to trial it with the year 7/8 classes first.

We will supply an empty paint bucket with a lid and handle for every class to use as a bin. These will have to be emptied every one or two days – as it will start to smell – in the compost bins that will be placed near the gardens. When the bucket gets emptied, they also need a quick wash out.

We thought that we could have a competition. Every 2-3 weeks we would award lollys to the class that, by our standards, has the best looked after bin. We will monitor this by spot checks and by asking the teachers their opinions.

We will make a poster for what can go in it and what can’t and talk at Year Level to explain it to the students.

 

Moving Planet Day

You remember 350? When we planted 100 trees on MAC field?

350 is here again with a Moving Planet event on the 24th September.
So on Friday, come to school by bike, skate, foot, but avoid using fuel.

Click here to view our Moving planet presentation.

360 4 350!

This year is organised “360 4 350” at Snow park NZ. Snow Park NZ will be allowing free runs all morning, the catch being you don’t use the lift! There will also be 20% off lift passes for the afternoon session for anyone who takes part. Snow Park are awesome!

 

Fantastic trip to Mou Waho

We are very grateful to be invited to a trip to Mou Waho to celebrate Conservation Week.

DOC and Eco Wanaka took us by boat to the island and it was not as cold as we were told!

We brought with us a Weta Motel designed in wood by MAC students and we planted kowhai trees. We then walked up the island.

We saw 15 wekas but no weta.

And our story made the front page of the College newsletter this week!

A day to remember!

 

Save Energy campaign

Today, we’ve put up 10 posters in the college to remind students and teachers to save energy.

Our energy bill is huge and wasting energy is crazy, because it uses up resources that are in limited supply AND it adds CO2 and other pollutions in the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change.

By just being mindful, we can make a difference!

 

To act or not to act?

It is a bit long but worth it :

And Greg Craven website with more…

 

Save energy!

Did you know? In winter, Mount Aspiring College uses 5 tons of coal every 9 days. So please keep the doors and windows closed.

The school electricity bill is of $7000 per month! So please turn the lights and computers off when not needed and keep the heat pumps down.

We designed some stickers to remind everyone to turn the lights of and have pasted them next to each switch of the school.

Thank you from the Earth, from the care-taker and Mac Team Green!

During our meeting, we had a look at this youtube.

It shows that climate change IS happening and that people DON’T WANT to know. The good thing is it has been viewed by nearly 100,000 people in just 20 days…

 

19 trees from paper!

This year, Wanaka Wastebusters has picked up 4 to 6 wheelie bins of paper per month from Mount Aspiring College.  They are 240 litre wheelie bins.

The weight of the contents can vary a lot depending on whether its shredded paper, loose  office paper or magazines/newspapers.

Roughly, the college is recycling  about 1-1.5 cubic metres of paper a month. 

Wastebuster also picks up 4 to 6 “fadges” of cardboard a month.  That equates to about  2 – 3 cubic metres.

This amount “earns” the college 19 trees this year through the Paper4Trees programme. It is a great incentive to encourage all the students to better recycle paper.

Mac Team Green keeps reminding students and staff to recycle paper and empty the paper bins into the large paper recycling bins.

There is still lots of paper in the “normal” bins, so we can do better.

 

 

Earth Hour in MAC

Right now in the college, it feels pretty cosy. Lights are off in all classes but one -too dark to work without the lights on. Even the office turned the lights off and we all find that we can study without them.

Thank you to Green Team for organising it,  following their presentation in assembly.

World wide Earth hour was in March http://www.earthhour.org/Homepage.aspx?intro=no but doing it is an easy awareness action that announces further plans. And observing how it is well received is encouraging and great.

Well Done MAC!