Grace+Fogarty

Year 9 Japanese

=St Leonards=

cornish campus
Sustainability

"Sustainability is providing enough for everyone for ever."

At St Leonards cornish campus, they have created a sustainable environment in which the students can learn from to develop their own sustainability skills. With this knowledge it will allow them to contribe to the environment and the wellbeing of our earth.

This school is dedicated towards the sustainability of the environment as well as sustaining their lives and wellbeing using four connecting rings titled: Personal, Urban/ Technology, Socio- culture and Natural.

Some of the ways that St Leonards contributes to the environment are:


 * Vegetable garden- In the yard, the school has provided a vegetable garden. Every week a differnet class is in charge of taking care of the garden and when the plants have grown, parents have an opportunity to take them home.


 * Lighting- At St Leonards, They have built in windows on the roof which allows rooms to be lit up with light that does not waste any electricity. In some rooms, when lighting is needed energy effi9cient lightbolbs are there to do the work.


 * Waste- At this school, there are a variety of bins for different waste. Chooks are also living at this school, and they are there to eat the leftover scraps.


 * Creating energy- Solar panels as well as a wind turbine are provided at the school to create energy. Because the school sometimes creates more then enough energy then they need power is put back in to the grid which saves them alot of money.


 * Water tanks- These water tanks at the school, collect water so that it can be provided for their efficient heating and cooling.


 * Recycled paper- At the school they only use recycled paper. Thay make sure that every little bit that is not used is recycled in every was possible. Also the school does not use text books.


 * Air conditioning and heating- At St Leonards they have a special way of heating and cooling using corregated cardboard and water. The cardboard is set out in a certain way that ensures that it does not decompose.


 * Animals- The school has a range of animals which can provide manure for the garden.


 * Loudspeaker- This school does not waste energy using a loudspeaker. The only time any form of alarm goes is for an emergency such as a fire, snake or a swarm of bees.

Not only is this school good to the environment, but it saves them hundreds of dollars in electricity bills.

CERES

At CERES, we were taken on a very informative tour. First we were taken on a tour of a sustainable house, replicated from the houses in the local area, but had an interior design as well as a slightly altered outside design that made it more energy efficient. Some of the things that made this house efficient included: · Solar panels- not only did the solar panels generate energy from the sun but they were used as a roof for the driveway. · Recycled wood · Window eaves- that allowed a conveniant amount of lighting to com ethrough the window in certain months. · Natural lighting · Energy efficient appliances · Water tank- used to flush the toilet · Recycled materials · Veggie garden · Plants that are native to not only Australia, but Melbourne so that they do not need to be watered. We also looket at another house that was in the middle of renevating and we noticed how it had many windoes and solar panels. As we walked around the site, we came to a bike shed. This is where people could donate their old bikes or bike parts, and others would be able to come along and learn how to build a bike, choosing whichever of the many parts that they wanted. During the day we came to the veggie gardens. People from the community are allowed to hire these veggie gardens to grow their own produce.We also came across larger veggie garden’s where the plants are harvested and then sold at their market where you could also buy other goods.This markets idea was t sell produce that is truly fresh and has only had to be transported metres rather than km or from country to country. Ceres produces fertilizer in many many ways. They have a recycling food system where the differnet food types are all kept serarate from each other into different catagories eg. Citrus, food scraps, fruits and veggies etc. Thses foods were then used in the many worm farms. The food is eventually broken down by all of the mini beasts and parasites before being used to fertilize the gardens. I’m sure that most people were probably most interested in the cafe. At this cafe, all of the food is organic, wheter it is coffee or a sausage roll, it is all fresh. After our short break we took part in the Australia 2030 trial. In this workshop, we got to imagine what life would be like depending on our future habits, and learn that any one peron can make a difference. This experience helped me understand how we as a school can be more energy efficient, as well as giving me some ideas of how Japan could be sustainable and can make a difference. As a school, there are many things that we could improve on. This includes: · Bringing natural lighting into classrooms- the lights are constantly geing used, when there really is no need. Also even when there are quite large windows in a classroom, and could easily light up a room, the blings are always down. · Energy efficient appliances- for example, there is nothing indicating that any of the computers at our school are energy efficient. But it is not only the computers, the heating and cooling as well as the few fridges throughout the school would easily be able to be energy efficient. · Turning appliances off- I know that for hours the computers and lights at the school are left on- not only should people turn the appliances off after use, but at the end of the day they should be turned off at the switch. · Different bin types- There are many different bins that could be used in any environmet, these incluse, recycling and bins for food scraps. The food scraps could be easily used as fertilizer to sustain the gardens. · Water tanks- the water collected in water tanks could be collected for many dofferent uses, not only could it be used to water the garden, but it could be used for flushing toilets and priving heating and cooling fo the school. · Veggie patch- By creating a veggie patch, members of the school community would have an opportunity to eat fresh produce, and the students would have an opporyunity to get involves. · Solar panels- they are a great way to provide energy for the school. Even though some of these ideas may be expensive, the effects of them would show in the future and in the long run will save the school plenty of money.