Pupils take action at Hawkshead Esthwaite Primary by:Investigating how we use water in our homes

Researching the work of Water Aid and making a Power Point and posters for Parents/Community to share at Harvest Service

Trialling “carrying water” on our heads and writing a play to support the underlying ideas

Raising £100 for Water Aid at our Harvest Service

Asking our Link school in Ghana how they use/value water….

Finding out about recycling and waste, composting in our homes

Monitoring waste food at school

Making leaflets of our findings for parents and the community

Asking our link schools about waste and recycling….

How we can make a difference

Results of Water Use in our Homes..

We used the harvest service and assemblies at school to encourage people to save water and use less..

• Shower rather than bath

• Turn taps off between cleaning teeth

• Don’t leave taps dripping

• Fix leaks

• Get a half flush for the loo!

At school we have a rainwater harvesting system for use in our toilets and we have water butts to collect water for the plants…

Carrying Water on our Heads

We learnt what it would feel like to carry water for long periods on our heads!

Play Script about water shortage in the Lake DistrictNewsreader: MiaNews Reporter : HollyWeather girls: Faith, Paige and EllieThemselves: James, Alasdair and Dylan LScene 1 NewsroomNewsreader: Newsflash! Hawkshead has been low on water recently, people have started going all the way to Esthwaite water to get their water. Now over to Holly live in HAWKSHEAD.Reporter: I am joined with some of the poor children that have to go all the way to Esthwaite to get their water which is dirty and has blue/green algae in it. How do you deal about this terrible drought?Dylan: Like you said Holly, there has been a terrible drought in the South Lakes. We have to walk all the way to Esthwaite and back 3 times a day. There has been no rain for 8 months now which is highly unusual in this area. (Holds up tub of water)Reporter: Wow that must be hard work. What else does this drought mean?Alasdair: It is also affecting the crops – they are dying and Julie has no food to cook our dinners with. (Holds up shrivelled vegetable)Reporter: And James how has it affected you?James: (with muddy face) On the way back from collecting water I spilt a lot so today I didn’t have to shower – YES!!Reporter: Thank you for talking to us – back to the studio.Newsreader: Thank you Holly and now time for the weather.Faith:The drought looks set to continue so there will be no rain in the South Lakes area. The weather fron coming in is bringing more hot weather and our monitor shows no clouds coming our way.This is unusual for the Lake District but this will continue for at least another week.Ellie: We are sorry but water will still have to come from Esthwaite water.Paige: That’s it for today, back to the studio and back to sunbathing for us!Newsreader:Well thank you girls. Now I am joined in the studio by Tim Farron our local MP. What are your thoughts on the drought Tim?Tim F.: Well its terrible. We have never had anything like this before – all I can say is Nick Clegg and I are doing our best to look after you and hoping it will get better soon.Newsreader: Thank you Tim for your opinion. That’s all for today. Are the ice creams on you Tim?

  

We researched about water needs in the world and shared what we found out with parents and the community

We made a power point for parents

Some slides from our Water Aid Research

Why we need Water for KidsTake a minute to imagine your life without a constant supply of clean water. Imagine spending six hours of your already busy day fetching the water you and your family need for drinking, cooking and washing. Now take a moment to honour the four children whose lives were cut short as this minute passed due to preventable water-related diseases. We have researched some facts and statistics which we will share with you now.

Women

Every day the work that the women (carrying water) in poor countries is equivalent to building 28 empire state buildings.

Children

Every 1 hour 173 children die from contaminated water

Illness

The majority of illness is caused by fecal matter. More than 2 million people die each year from diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery from contaminated water . Most of these deaths are caused by diarrhoea.

3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease.

Amazing Fact

The same amount of children die every day is the equivalent of a full jumbo jet crashing every 4 hours.

Water Aid

Water aid help by holding expeditions, bake sales, consorts and choral to fund raising. Water aid makes wells so they can access clean water.

Questions we sent to our Link school in Ghana:

Enquiry Questions !! From Hawkshead PrimaryDo you have clean water at home and school?Do you have taps?How much water do you use a day at home and at school?What do you grow at school and home?Do you have enough food to feed your family?What do you have to eat at school? Are there any orphans at your school?What kind of things do you want rather than need in your life??How long is your school day?What do you do to help the environment – do you compost and recycle?

What we grow in our school garden……..

We dig up potatoes for Julie to cook in the

kitchen.

We drew the tomatoes that we planted in the green house we drew lettuces as well and ate

them for lunch!

This is what we grow in the garden.

Broad Beans

This is us cleaning Potatoes

Onions

This is a composting poster- we designed a compost plan to show how a compost heap

works. We use all our own compost when we grow vegetables each

year in the garden

What We eat and the meals we enjoy……

We like our school meals they are very

nice and healthy .

What is in my lunch box

today?

Potatoes from the garden…

Investigating what children in other parts of the world eat – what is similar what is different? What do we notice? (Venn Diagram)

How we investigated what food to we wasted each day… What can we do about it???

We weighed the waste over 9 weeks to see how much we wasted and we found out the averages of each meal over a 3 week cycle….We graphed the results….

The least waste was from pizza and fish like salmon. We waste between 1-2 kg food a day! We need to waste less by trying to eat all on our plate and trying new foods!

All the children, led by the Eco Committee, made up a questionnaire for parents about waste, composting and recycling at home:

Questionnaire:

What do you waste?1.Do you think you waste food?2.How much waste food do you think you throw away each week?3.Which foods do you waste most? 4.How do you try to reduce waste food?  5. Would you ever eat out of date products?6.Do you compost?7.What materials do you recycle? 8.Do you think before you throw things out?9.Do you think before you buy things you don’t need?10.Are you influenced by offers at the shops such as buy one get one free ?

HOW TO REDUCE THE WASTE IN YOUR HOME AND SAVE THE PLANET

a b

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9

Things we recycle

Percentages

Tin 56

Other 32

Paper 92

Card 51

Plastic 93

cans 56

glass 80

clothes 48

Recycling can make a huge difference to the world and prevent global warming. Global warming could cause flooding and wild fires damaging wildlife and forests.

How do families recycle at Hawkshead Primary School!!!!

The material that the families recycle the most is paper and the least is card.

If you don’t recycle at home you could go down to Hawkshead and recycle various materials like paper, card, plastic, glass, clothes and shoes. You will find the recycling skips in the car park next to the school.

Please make a difference to our community.

Percentage of different materials recycled by families

Graph to show how we recycle at Hawkshead

Percentage of items recycled

Items for recycling

Get Composting!!!!Hawkshead pupils sent out a survey to families to find out if they composted their waste, fruit and vegetables. Having finished our survey, we found out that not enough people compost! 36% of people do compost. We need some of the 64% that don’t compost to change their minds and start composting! We can only do this with your help so please join us and make a difference!

Composting is important because it re-uses the wasted food and turns it into fertile soil ready to put into the ground and grow vegetables in. This means that nothing gets wasted. Think of the fruit or vegetables that are weeks out of date or fruit and veg you don’t want or don’t like, instead of throwing it out, compost it and make soil ready for growing new, tasty fruit and vegetables!

Wasting FoodThe Eco Committee sent out a questionnaire to ask families about wasting food and what food they waste. We made all the results into percentages.Results are that 40% said they do waste food and 48% said they don’t and 12% said that they sometimes waste food. Many people said they throw away very little food each week but most people said that they did waste some. Fruit and vegetables were the foods most wasted and some said carbohydrates. Only a little dairy and protein were wasted

This tells us that a lot of people are wasting the important parts of the meal like the veg and the carbohydrates!!! We now need to realise why we need to eat fruit vegetables and carbohydrates because it gives us vitamins and energy!!

Top Tips on How to Reduce Food Waste

Don’t Buy too much!

Save any leftovers and…. • Freeze the leftovers, • Put leftovers in the fridge eat at another meal

Give scraps to;• The guinea pig and cats, • Feed the dogs with leftovers, • Giving leftovers to the birds

Change cooking habits • Eat everything on the plate.• Plan meals ahead• Only cook what we will eat

Change shopping habits • Buy little loaves of bread, • Change shopping order,• Buy produce in smaller quantities,

We have done a survey on waste and we have found out that 36% said they were influenced by offers, 12% where not influenced by offers and 56% said it depended what the offers were as to whether they bought things !! What you should think when you see a

offer???

1 Look at the date and think if you will eat it in time of date sometimes you might not.

2 Stop and think if you will really eat the food and not put it in the bin.

3 Don’t buy what you don’t need.

4 Don’t get too much so you have to throw it away.

Are you influenced by offers at the shops?

What we found out… from our link school in Ghana

Do you have clean water at home and school? YesDo you have taps? YesHow much water do you use a day at home and at school? 3 Glasses of water

What do you grow at school and home? Tomatoes, Pears, Paw Paw, garden egg and Water Melon.Do you have enough food to feed your family? YesWhat do you have to eat at school? Breakfast, Tea, biscuits, kenkey.  

We asked:They said

Are there any orphans at your school? NoWhat kind of things do you want rather than need in your life?? EducationHow long is your school day? 8 Hours 20 minutesWhat do you do to help the environment – do you compost and recycle? Recycle.

We can make a difference….What we have learnt and shared….

We compost to make rich,

fertile soil.

We put our Global classes

in assembly and look at pictures and think about

the pictures.

We put our Global classes

in assembly and look at pictures and think about

the pictures.

DEKS Educational InstituteEnquiry Questions from our Link school in Tema/Ghana

 1.What are some of the learning materials in your school?Computers, books, paper, white board

2.Are you happy being in school?Yes- we like maths, PE, playtime, history, art, literacy, science

3.Do you have single parent families in your school?A few...

4.What games do you have?Football, tennis, basketball, rounders, orientering

5.Do your teachers always come to school?Yes

6.Do your sweep the classrooms? If so what do you use brooms or brushes?Not usually. Our school caretaker does. He uses a vacuum cleaner as our classrooms are carpeted. He would use a brush for the hall and other areas.

7. Do you have trees in your school?Yes

8.Do you plant trees in your school?Yes we lost trees in the gales so we need to replant some

12.If water is dirty, what do you do to make it clean?Not really a problem

13.Is your environment always clean?Yes in the country but can be polluted in the cities

14.What do you do to your waste at home?We recycle, compost and reuse paper

15.Can you mention some of the food you eat at school?Pizza, pasta, curry, sausages, sandwiches, jacket potatoes, chicken, roast pork, burgers, vegetables, fruit, yoghurts,

16.What do you like doing best at school?Field Trips and visits to places17.What do you do to make your environment clean?Pick up litter and try to not pollute too much

9.How far is your home from school?Some children live in the same village as the school and others travel. The furthest being 5/6 miles.

10.How long do you spend getting to school?It ranges from 5 minutes walking to a 10 minute bus ride.