As students are only at Woorabinda for five days, we encourage students to take home and to their own school all the simple actions of sustainable living that we practice here at Woorabinda. As we encourage students to improve their habits relating to sustainable living, that is the best outcome we can see. Things such as turning the lights off during the day time, using shower timers to ensure the only have up to 4 minute showers, checking taps are not left dripping throughout the day, thinking about what goes into landfill, recycling and the worm farms, and making the choice of how much food they take to ensure they do not take more than enough and waste what can’t be finished.
World Environment Day.
We started off with a presentation at the morning assembly highlighting the focus for this years World Environment Day being “Think, Eat, Save”. This message encourages children to become more aware of the food choices they make.
During assembly we also highlighted the sustainable practices that we do at Woorabinda and pointed out how they can be transferred back to individuals homes and local school.
Three students finished the presentation with four important messages for other students to remember for the day; being “Switch off”, “Every drop of water counts”, “Think, Eat, Save” and reminding everyone that “if you think you are too small to make a difference, you have never been in bed with a mosquito”.
At dinner time in the dining room, students participated in a World Environment Day quiz, which was put together by a staff member. The answers to the quiz were posted over the doors throughout the dorms during the day, and students were encouraged to remember as many facts as possible for their table to win the quiz.
Below are images of the information for quiz on dorm doors, and the actual quiz.
Quiz: Why is so much food wasted?
1. We cook too much food.
2. We forget about leftovers in the fridge/freezer.
3. We don’t know how to use leftovers.
4. We buy too much because we don’t stick to a shopping list.
5. We often shop when we’re hungry so we buy more food than we need.
6. We don’t check the cupboard or fridge before going shopping.
7. We are not planning our meals and menus as much as we could.
8. Buying takeaways at the last minute instead of cooking the food we have.
9. Food is mistakenly thrown out before the use-by date.
10. Peeling fruit or vegetables when skin not looking good but underneath is still edible.
