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In one of my lessons I talked about the problem of plastic bags. I got the students to draw pictures on this theme using the words “Plastic bags? No, thank you.”
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The kindergarten had a fancy dress parade- with a difference; all the costumes had to be made out of rubbish or recyclable materials. Eleven children participated and the entries included the following:
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“Solar-powered Roving Automatic Vending Machine” made out of milk boxes
“Giant Crane” with a 6’ wing span made out of old posters
“Giant Dove” made out of cardboard, old paper and aluminum instant noodles pack.
“Time Flies Like an Arrow” made out of old calendars.
“Thirsty Woodsman” made out of paper with fringes made using a shredder.
“Photo Album” made out of old posters and pictures from calendars
“Going Out: Nobel Peace Prize Recipient” made out of bubble wrap, mandarin nets and blue advertising pamphlets. |
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“Sadako” holding her peace cranes made out of lollypop papers and advertising papers.
“Astronaut” made out of silver cereal packets
“Purikyua White” and “Purikyua Black” (Japanese animation characters) made out of all sorts of scrap paper and ribbons.
“A Suit of Armor From the Museum” made out of aluminum cans, cardboard box, aluminum instant noodles packs and an old street sign |
Ami as Sadako Sasaki from Hiroshima with her cranes made from scrap paper. |
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The Nobel Peace Prize printed over an old certificate.
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A Japanese umbrella made from old calendars. |
It was amazing to see what could be created out of stuff that we throw away (or recycle). |
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The Nakatsue Cherry Blossom Festival is in its 18th year. The Shimouke Dam in Nakatsue is the drinking water reservoir for Fukuoka City . The purpose of the festival is to plant trees to enhance the quality of the water supply and to promote interaction between people from town and country.
The day started with a tour of the dam, then 100 cherry blossom trees were planted along a small waterway, which runs into the dam.
After lunch the 60 children, from Nakatsue and Fukuoka , were divided into eleven groups. Each group was given a wooden board and the assortment of tiles to go on it. First, they laid out the border and the pattern on the draft paper, then they stuck those tiles on and carried on with the background. The tiles will be grouted and put together on the wall of the Shimouke Dam Information Center .
The mosaic was made from leftover tiles from a professional tiler and broken plates, mugs and teapots. Even "rubbish" can be recycled/ remade into a piece of art.
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On March 27th the Shimouke Dam Information Center Ecoclub had its first meeting. In preparation for the upcoming Cherry Blossom festival we planted 200 petunias, very quickly as it was raining! The 16 children then drew flowers on some card. These were laminated and put up in the garden as "flags".
The club is sponsored by the Japanese government's Ministry for the Environment. Participants will receive a badge, a folder, a notebook and some stickers. Activity reports can be posted on a website.
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 EcoClub April Meeting
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Children came to the voluntary rubbish pick up. We had a "just boys" group and a "just girls" group. At the end they were racing to the rubbish tins to see who could get the most rubbish. After 20 minutes the park was spotless!
We brainstormed some ideas for "eco-friendly" and "eco-UNfriendly" means of transport and made a poster. We are plotting the mileage of each person with the aim of getting the group average down.
Lastly, we spent an hour burying 10 old tires, obtained from the local garage, to make a piece of playground equipment. Then we had great fun playing "JAN-KEN-HEBI"(a rock-paper-scissors game). |
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June Ecoclub
As usual the rubbish collectors came back with several large bags of rubbish.
We made some biscuits called Honey Snaps and a lolly called Hokey Pokey in New Zealand. Not so many Japanese have ovens so this was something a little different.
You can tell from Sachi's face that she thinks this is fun!
The environmental point of this activity.
1) to make some additive free food.
2) to compare the amount of rubbish generated between homemade and shop-bought items.
I distributed a few shop-bought treats. The kids ate them and we made a poster with all the rubbish. The rubbish from our homemade items : ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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| This chart is a summary of the school’s monthly expenditure on power since April 2003 (blue line). It shows a monthly decrease due to their energy awareness in 2004 (red line). |
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The Grade 5 class recently finished an art project. They chose `The Environment` as their theme and each student designed their own poster. The text on each poster has been translated. |
Let’s protect our oceans Sea turtle by Ayane Miyabe |
Don’t pollute the oceans by Miho Matsugami |
Let’s save them Forests: Rivers:Greenery by Sakie Katagiri |
Treasure Nature’s rivers and forests by Fumikazu Takehara |
Let’s protect our precious rivers by Takahiro Satoh |
Treasure our forests and rivers by Yuuya Nagase |
Everyone will be happy when people make efforts to protect the earth by Shunsaku Etoh
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Treasure our forests by Yuria Ishikura |
Living Nature by Marin Oosawa |
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May Ecoclub
At 9:30 the rubbish volunteers ventured down a road, which until recently has been underwater (from the dam). They came back with 3 huge bags of car parts, rubbish and a rubber hose several meters long, so their efforts were well rewarded. |
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At 10:00 we stuffed a tire full of scrunched up, wet newspaper to add a level to my worm farm. Then the ecoclub members colored in some posters to put on lampposts advertising the flea market. They set up their goods for sale and enjoyed an hour or more of selling and buying. The clamor of entrepreneurial voices could be heard quite some distance away.
A flea market for kids; probably a first in Nakatsue and a great success. Hopefully it will become an annual event. |
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Even if you buy just a can of drink in a convenience store in Japan it will be put in a plastic bag unless you request otherwise, so we initiated a "My Bag" Campaign.
Eco-club members took orders from family and friends and we purchased and distributed 150 100% cotton, bleach- free, environmentally friendly shopping bags.
For each bag order the members got one Earth Dollar. |
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Refusing plastic bags.
