Siana+Hewett

Year 9 Japanese
 * St. Leonards College 18th March 2010:**
 * Very sustainable
 * eg: vegetable gardens which provide food for cooking
 * Icecream containers are placed under the drinking taps to collect water that would go down the drain
 * Use laptops to learn, not textbooks (saves paper/the environment)
 * Alpacas, shee, cows, chooks and snakes
 * The school has a range of indeginious plants planted around the school land
 * The sustainable centre had windows which would provide air conditioning to the centre. The windows were made of thick cardboard in which water would stream down, providing a cool breeze.
 * Wind turbines to provide electricity towards the school

Being sustainable doesn't isn't only benificial towards the environment, but also towards the school. They save the amounts as followed: Engergy: 70 GJ Dollars: $2000 GH Gass: 5 tonnes Black Balloons: 100,000 This amount of saving can go towards the schoola and the 340 students that are appart of the school community. (Fundraising, school facilities.)

When walking around the school, you would find art paintings of 4 particular rings which each connected. The vice princable explained to us that they were used to motivate the students to think about how they can be sustainable both inside and outside the school. "SOCIALL CULTURAL, PERSONAL, URBAN TECHNOLOGY, NATURAL." They also used the statement "enough for all forever" to keep them motivated as a school community and to encourage ideas to keep and make their school more sustainable.

Yesterday was a great day. I learnt many things from visiting CERES. Even though it was FREEZING and we had to walk a lot, it was very enjoyable and I did gain a lot of knowlege about sustainability. Iv'e never really walked into a sustainable house. Iv'e experienced many lectures on sustainability and have seen many pictures of Sustainable houses, but being able to walk into one and see how it looks different and has a different atmosphere was very interesting. It was interesting to see how the house was placed North to attract Natural lighting and heating, and how the paving on the varanda would absorb water which would go onto the plants. I also enjoyed looking at the different plant nursery's and the different soils and vegetables they grew. The toilets in CERES were also very well designed. The water would flush and collected rain water would fall into the basent so we could wash our hands. The water would then go into the drain and fill up the toilet bowel.
 * __REFLECTION__**

After getting several replies from my Japanese penpal, Mr Lane was able to translate it.

"Electricity, if no-one in the classroom, we turn off the light volountarily. Water, we try to close the tap properly. We have a rubbish bin for paper, plastic bottles separately. We almost all use recycled paper. Cleaning, everyone has their own part to clean the school. We don't need to clean graffiti because we don't have any."

This information sent from my Japanese PenPal gave me brief information about sustainability in Japan Schools. It is very similar to our school. The experience at CERES did help me make connections with my research into Sustainability in Japan schools. Also, going to the beautiful Japanese restraunt on Lygon St was a great experience.

At St. Columba's College, there are many things we could do to be Sustainable. We should buy all our excersise books in Recycled paper brands and should take our Lunch Time litter problem to a further extend. We should make the consequences harder on us students to eliminate the rubbish being left on the school grounds after school. We should also put ice-cream buckets underneath the drink taps, to prevent wasted water. The water should then be tipped onto the gardens in the school. We should also turn off all lights and computers in the labs to stop wasting electricity. If all the computers were turned off at the power switch everynight, not only will it benifit the school in cheaper electricity bills, but it will also dramatically help the environment.