Friday, 26 April 2013

Acting to make food fair!

This week the Fair Trade Group have organised a big school-wide petition. We gave a mini marcher to each tutor group along with a petition form for signatures. Our petition form said

"Despite producing 70% of the world's food, over half of the world's hungriest people are smallholder farmers. I am calling on David Cameron to go further and champion a better deal for the world's smallholder farmers at this year's G8 meeting. I support the campaign for a sustainable food system, which works for everyone and ensures that farmers get a decent livelihood from the crops they grow."

All the signatures were collected and counted. We sent a total of 249 signatures off to the Fair Trade Foundation!

Karen Craigie and Clara Morriss, S6

Mini marchers out on display at today's tuckshop

Signing the petition



Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Transition Event – Rights Respecting Schools

On 11 April a group of 20 third year pupils accompanied Mrs Mackenzie to Juniper Green Primary Schoolto attend an inspiring afternoon event.  The Primary 7 pupils and teachers from our cluster primaries met together and took part in activities on the theme of Rights and Respect.   

The pupils from the different schools played a game of human bingo during the welcome time while enjoying  juice and biscuits.  The pupils were guided into mixed groups with the High School pupils helping and supporting the Primary 7 pupils to play some games and discuss issues of human rights in the context of a school.  The informal atmosphere gave the primary pupils an opportunity to ask questions and air their fears about coming up to High School.  

The afternoon was enjoyed by all and the High School volunteers gave ideas on how the activities could be improved for next time.  We look forward to meeting the Primary 7 pupils again soon.

The Litter-Less Lunch Project!


 Last term two second year classes created a litter-less lunch campaign. We worked with professional film makers to devise a story board in small groups. The storyboard was to promote awareness of the effects of dropping litter.  The story board needed to show the consequences of dropping the litter and also needed a catchy slogan! The winning story board would be taken and made into a short advert and then would be entered into a competition against other schools. In class we looked at all of the story boards and scored them one to ten (one being the worst and ten being the best) on various attributes. We also got the eco team involved and asked them to choose their favourite, along with the teachers and Ms Jordan-our media expert.

It was decided that the winning story board was created by Billy, Dylan and Dale (2EN7) and a group of other second year pupils were chosen to take part in the filming of the advert. Their idea was: three friends are strolling through the woods; one of the girls drops a piece of litter and gets attacked by a tree!

We worked collaboratively with the professional film makers and spent the day filming in Roley’s wood. Working with film cameras and boom microphones helped to finish our film to the highest possible standard! Learning about white balance, focus, exposure and framing helped improve our knowledge of film techniques. The advert was prepared in three different stages, initially we learnt about the filming techniques, following that we began to film in Roley’s wood. It took a whole day but was definitely worth it! To finish, we began working with professional editing software and edited the advert to make it look professional! This would hopefully give us a good shot at winning the competition.

New bin stickers designed by Jonathan McVinnie
To promote our advert and to raise awareness we began a ‘missing’ campaign. The girl who had been attacked by the tree in the advert was now declared missing so we made posters and news reports to go up around the school. The film has now been shown to all the pupils to bring together the whole campaign and the anti-litter drive!

If we win the competition, our advert will be made to a professional standard and used in anti-litter work throughout the year in many different domains across Edinburgh. How exciting! There is also a viewing of the adverts for all schools involved at the Filmhouse, so we even get a taster of the successes film-makers have too.

We have really enjoyed this experience and would love to have an opportunity like this again. Thank you to all the people who made it possible as we have learnt some great skills for later in life! It has definitely opened our eyes to the different possible careers out there and it’s great to think that we’ve done our bit for the planet at the same time.

Fin Rutherford (2K1) and Eilidh Grubb (2K2)

To watch the film made by the S2 pupils check out http://vimeo.com/63733518

Treasure hunts in Roleys Wood


The S3 xl class were out in the woods last week setting up Easter egg treasure hunts for eachother. One group made a fantastic treasure map with a key, another gave a very detailed set of instructions to find the hidden red eggs. 

We were all most impressed by Connor Quinn's group who used rhyming couplets in their quest, with eggs hidden in a large clump of snowdrops to under the bridge - pretty amazing to have made up in 15 minutes!

"In the field of white
Hides the egg of red light

Next to blackened plastic lies
That which contains an animal which flies

Under the second dense tree
Hides red egg No. Three

Now where trolls of legend live
Is our final gift to give"


Friday, 12 April 2013

Earth Hour 2013 at Edinburgh Castle

Pupils from our Eco Committee helped WWF Scotland launch Earth Hour 2013 at Edinburgh Castle. We also held our own 'lights off' event at school.
All photos (c) Callum Bennetts - Maverick Photo Agency.





 
More photos on the WWF Scotland facebook page!