Well done Becky! And Our Fair Trade competition entry.

Hi all,

we are delighted that Becky from our eco-club has been selected to represent Coleraine Borough Council at the North West Heat of the Youth Speak 2011 Environmental Public Speaking competition.  Both Lucie and Becky had worked hard on their speeches and they were a real credit to themselves and the school. 
The final is 14th May in Craigavon Civic Centre so Becky will be putting lots of practice in between now and then.

At Eco-club this week we were preparing for the Eco-Den event next week and we hope we will be able to impress at this event as well.

In Year 9, 9F are entering the Fair Trade Snack Attack competition which involves designing packaging for a Fair Trade snack.  The pictures below show their entry.  We are making our fruit and nut clusters next Wednesday.  The pupils have put a lot of effort into their entry and even if they don't win- they all have enjoyed the process and learnt so much about Fair Trade and what it involves.

Planted hedging plants from the Woodland Trust Today in school!

Hi all,

we planted our hedgerow pack today in school.  We had received our hedgerow pack from the Woodland Trust last week. 

The hedgerow pack containing 30 plants of the following species:

•6 of each - Hawthorn, Hazel, Holly, Dog rose, Dogwood.

•The trees can be planted as a traditional hedgerow and provide an excellent habitat for wildlife.

•A mixture of species within a native hedgerow is an excellent habitat for small birds and mammals too.

Here is a weblink for the Woodland Trust  - it has a short video on it which explains the benefits of trees and hedges to us, wildlife and our environment.

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/more-trees-more-good/Pages/campaign.aspx

Also this week  - Lucie and Becky took part in the Youth Speak 2011 Competition.  They presented their speech in front of their class and Mrs Waters from Coleraine Borough Council on the topic of Love food Hate Waste!  They were really excellent and both girls had devoted a lot of time into researching this topic as their speeches were full of interesting facts that made all of us think twice about portion sizes and reducing our waste of all descriptions.

Well done Lucie and Becky for participating!

Will update next week!

Potatoes planted today.

Hi all,

We had a great day today.  There were even more residents involved and the young and old had a productive day together.

As always, there were a few hiccups - the minibus was being used by another teacher and they were delayed elsewhere.  We all piled into the teachers cars and we arrived only 10 minutes late - better late than never!

We then got busy digging and raking.  The residents all got to plant a potato each and everyone seems genuinely excited about seeing the plants growing.



The group of workers who enjoyed the sunshine today in the Brook Garden.

  
The courgettes that we planted last week are huge compared to the ones that we planted in school.  We thought the warm constant heat of the nursing home and regular watering by the residents has made a very comfortable environment for the seeds to germinate.  Our's definitely would not even be half the size - but I am sure they will catch up.

We had taken loads of photos today  - I will upload some tomorrow - I do not have my camera at hand.

Other developments with eco-club are:

• we are delighted that we have been shortlisted to go to the ECO-UNESCO Eco Den on 5th April to showcase this project.  We will have to get our heads together to make our pitch to the judges a winning one.
• Lucie, Sheena and Becky have been selected from the eco-club members to represent the school in an environmental public speaking competition - YOUTH SPEAK 2011- on the topic of 'Love food, hate waste'.  If you want to find out more on this topic look at the following website for facts and figures: http://www.lovefoodhatewasteni.org  The girls are being judged on Monday 21st March- so we wish them luck.
• We have planted some flower seeds in seed trays  - pansy's, lobelia's, busy lizzy's  - to brighen up dull areas in the school.
• We have planted some lettuce seeds as well earlier this week. 
• The tomatoes and peppers are still thriving - getting bigger and bigger everyday.

That is all for now - will add photos tomorrow.

The planting gets started at the Brook!

Hi all,
we had another busy day today.   18 pupils from North Coast made our weekly visit to the Brook Nursing Home.  The pupils are really enjoying this project and the fact that so many want to be involved shows how successful this is. 

Here are some photos of what we all got up to today.

Onions sets planted and a fleece cover put over them to protect them from the elements and the birds!

Seed potatoes are set out to 'chit' -ready for planting next week.

The residents involved wanted their names on their pots so they could see whose was growing first.



Courgette seeds planted in our home made mini propagator's or as one of the residents called them "mini-greenhouse's" which I think is a better description of them.

Tomatoes and lettuce seeds were planted in seed trays today.

I think you will agree that we had a pretty busy but successful day.

Will keep everyone posted of all activities as we go along.  See you next week.

Home-made Eco-propagator

Hello,
we planted some courgettes in a simple home-made eco-propagator made out of the top of a 2 litre plastic drinks bottle.

Here is a photo of our efforts.

We will keep you posted with the progress of our courgettes.

This a photo of one of the sweet peas seeds that have germinated.

Our peppers are also getting bigger.

And our tomatoes too.

These do have propagator lids on them to keep the moisture in  - we just take the lids off for the photos.

Will keep you all posted of progress as we go along.

Many hands make light work!

Hi all,

Week 2 of our project and what a success it was!  We cleared the site of all the shrubs and bulbs and the pupils and residents replanted all of these so that nothing was wasted.  The plants were moved to a new home and they are shown in the photos below.

The bulbs got a new home as well!

The pupils and residents got stuck in to getting the vegetable bed ready by weeding and clearing the remaining site.  Here is some of those involved hard at work.  Personally, I think some are having too much fun!

More workers!

Some residents and pupils were hard at  work making signs that we are going to varnish and get put into the garden.  I think they did a fantastic job!

We had a great day today and we are looking forward to next week when we will get planting our vegetable garden.  We need to decide what is suitable to plant at this time of year - so some homework for us for this week.

Below is some photos of the seeds that have germinated in my room this week.







Red Pepper Seeds Germinated.




Cherry Tomato seeds germinated.

I also have a photo below of the sign we made recently out of some wood and recycled bottle tops.  I like it and we think it is a eco-friendly sign for our club.  We used a glue gun to stick the bottle tops to the wood.




We also decorated a large wooden plant holder with these - but a word of warning - the frost does something to the glue and all the tops fell off.  It did look nice before the frost - here it is below (it is the coloured box sitting on the table):

Any suggestions of how we could keep the bottle tops on would be appreciated!
 
Anyway that is all for now,  will update next week after our next visit to The Brook.