From the Eco Warriors 27.04.2024
This week, everyone at KIS has been prompted to think about our amazing planet Earth, the place we call home. Since Earth Day on Monday, we have had a display at our entrance about some of the staff’s favourite places in the world. Students were given the opportunity to add their places, and share where is special to them. To practice gratitude for the places we love is to understand the importance of protecting them.
On Tuesday we hosted some visitors from the local government and from Rasa Ria. Here is what our students learnt:
‘I felt like the workshop from the Environment Protection Department of Sabah was a truly memorable experience which could stick in my memory for a lifetime. If you visited the games at lunch, which included a snakes and ladders sort of thing, you could’ve won a minimalistic pencil case that is 100% recycled. The workers were extremely sweet and provided numerous activities after a talk in which they shared a lot about the impact of climate change along with how sea level would rise by almost a meter in Sabah, that would be a large change and could end up taking humanity by storm.
Their meeting shared urgency on what matters as every week should be earth week and so we can improve our habits so we could act on what was in their presentation.’
Shermaine (Year 6 Eco Warrior)
‘This Tuesday, the jungle rangers from the Shangri La Rasa Ria came into school to talk to us about how they are reducing plastic use at their hotel. We learnt about how to reduce and stop the use of plastic to save the environment & the Earth. The first way to reduce the waste of plastic is to recycle plastic, such as bottles and boxes.
Secondly, we have to plant more greens and decrease the amount of electricity we use.
Finally, to stop plastic, we must search for a way to use factories and use of clothes and plastics without having to litter or harm the Earth.
Also, we saw many animals, like tarantulas and snakes. It was truly an enjoyable and valuable experience.’
By Kaitlyn and Arlo (Year 5)
At KIS, we make great efforts to minimise the amount of waste we create. Our school lunches are already single-use packaging free and on Wednesday this week we took a step to waste even less by not selling any plastic bottles of water. We know that theset take hundreds of years to break down and more often than not they remain in the land, water and atmosphere for much longer as micro or nanoplastics. It was great see to see the conscious effort of everyone bringing in a reusable water bottle and questioning where else we can cut down on single-use items too.
On Thursday we hosted another brilliant Swap Shop where we tackled the idea of Fast Fashion by encouraging people to come and see whether they could re-stock their wardrobe with pre-loved items instead of brand new ones. We had students, parents and staff finding things they loved and we hope to run another Swap Shop in the near future. Please get in touch if you are interested in supporting this.
Throughout the week, staff across the school have also been incorporating these important topics into their curriculum lessons. Year 6 have been making websites to educate about plastic pollution and In Key Stage 3 English, students have spent all week developing their research, debating and presentation skills around an environmental topic. It was wonderful to watch the students speak to the ‘UN delegates’ about specific issues that countries should be acting on, and how.
We finished the week trialling a few new ideas at lunch time to reduce our food waste. These ideas came from our student-led Eco Committee and involved older students choosing their own portions of rice, and making the whole thing into a house competition too! There was certainly a lot less food waste than a normal day at KIS but which house won? Find out next week…
