Baie Ste Anne EcoAride Club reuse and recycle to keep their school grounds clean

The children in the EcoAride Club at Baie Ste Anne have found an excellent use for old fuel drums. They are reusing and recycling the drums as rubbish bins, which will be placed around the school grounds to discourage other children at the school from dropping litter.

In their last two extra curricular activity sessions they have been working hard to transform their new litter bins into something that will look good at their school. First of all they have covered the bins with a coat of plain paint and now they have the task of designing brightly coloured images to make them look good and to encourage people to use them.

They also have plans to use the bins to enable people to separate their rubbish, by labelling each one as to which rubbish it is specifically for. This will then enable the school to separate out plastic, paper, non recyclables, cans and glass, so in the future the materials may be recycled.

Aride Island corner at Grand Anse Primary School

When I went into school this week the children of the EcoAride club in Grand Anse Primary School, had started to create their very own Aride Corner in the school. With the help of me and the teachers from the school, the children started to transform what was once a dark and dingy stair well into a colourful representation of Aride Island. Following a visit to the island made by many of the children earlier in the year, they were inspired to try and create their own miniature Aride that they could see everyday. The children have already written accounts of their visit, and now they were to use their artistic skills to visually depict what they have seen on the island.
Initially the location of the corner presented a small challenge; however it has now been used to great effect, with the dark section under the stairs perfect for the colourful underwater scene, showing marine life, including tropical fish and turtles. The underneath of the stairs leading to the first floor makes and excellent place for a ‘Welcome to Aride’, together with large images of a frigate bird and of course the special red tailed tropic bird.
After just one Extra Curricular Activity session the corner is really starting to take shape and in coming weeks we hope to be working on cliff and woodland scenes, showing wildlife such as fairy terns, white tailed tropic birds, skinks and geckos. It is an excellent way to show other children from the school, just what Aride is like and hopefully get them interested too.

Once we have finished the walls we hope that we can start to create some models on the floor, using recycled materials and papier mache. There is so much wildlife that lives on Aride to choose from, the children will have to decide which represents the island the best and what are their favourites.

This is just the start of the work that the EcoAride club are planning to do around the school to illustrate and communicate conservation messages and also to make the school grounds, colourful, interesting and a great place to learn