Earth Hour 2015 at CCHS

This year the Eco-committee wanted to mark Earth Hour in a special way. WWF came up with an idea to create bunting to help us remember the things we appreciate most about our natural world. The brief asked us to use the phrase ‘For the love of…’ and complete the sentence about your favourite place, animal and anything that is special to you in our precious planet. WWF encouraged over 4500 schools across the UK to make the bunting in an attempt break a world record. 

Currie High School approached this challenge and the Eco-committee meetings were spent cutting out bunting out of recycled fabric to be transformed into wonderful bunting. Pupils in Art and SDE classes helped to create the design on the bunting. We are displaying our part of the bunting in school before the end of term and then it will be shipped to London to be put together with the bunting from other schools in a huge display.  We also plan to have all lights off in school P1 on Friday 27 March, before the global Earth Hour on Saturday 28 March.

By taking part in this challenge we are hoping to raise awareness of climate change and other environmental issues in our school; as well as to help support WWF raise awareness of climate change globally. We also celebrated all things eco at the One World Show on 26 March which showcased eco art, drama, music, poetry, dance and design.

By Sophie McVinnie and Abigail Odetayo, Eco Committee

The Eco Committee ripping up our donated old bedsheets

and cutting up the flags

to be decorated beautifully!

Our foyer looks great!

Green Flag Award success!!

We had an assessment visit this morning from Dugald MacGilp of Eco-Schools Scotland.  The Eco Committee did a superb job of explaining how the Eco-Schools programme runs at Currie and taking him on a tour of the school and grounds to show off what we've been doing.

Pupils from S1 - S6 spoke about their work, from the Fair Trade group to those planning the visit to Chogoria High School or the activities of the school grounds volunteers, from our S1 Sustainable Development Education course to the S2 GO4SET group, from an anti-litter campaign to a sustainable house design unit and learning about Fair Trade in French.

Huge thanks to everyone who was involved in this morning's visit. Dugald said he was 'bowled over' by the level of knowledge and enthusiasm of the pupils he met, and that he was delighted to renew our Green Flag for another two years. Hurray for us!

Litter bin meeting

Three members of the Eco Committee met Robert Davidson this week, our local Environment Task Force Manager at the council. We'd got in touch through Councillor Bill Henderson to ask if we could have a new bin at a specific place between the school and the shops where litter can be a problem at lunchtimes, particularly when the weather is nice.  

Robert was very helpful and has agreed to trial three new bins in places that we suggested!

Litter

Our actions to tackle litter in and around school continue.   The Eco-Committee have designed a Litter-o-Meter that is on display in our main foyer. Each lunchtime the cleaner rates the litter left from 'Really rubbish' to 'No rubbish' and results are shared in the pupil bulletin at the end of each week.

At our last Eco Committee meeting we invited two members of Currie Community Council (the Enviornmental and Education Convenors) as well as Councillor Bill Henderson and PC Dee, our school link police officer.   Litter in the community was the subject of our discussions, and what we can do as a school to help.  Sophie and Sally are going to write a letter to Cllr Henderson requesting an additional bin for the grassy area behind Woodlands School.   We also talked about making an anti-litter video, asking school neighbours why it would be good to stop littering.

Volunteers from S3 xl did a litter pick of Roley's Wood yesterday and collected 4 bags of litter, mainly from around the bridge area. Well done them!

New eco topics for the next two years

The Eco Committee have been hard at work this term, involving as many pupils as possible in doing an Environmental Review of the whole school. We do this to see what we're doing well as a school and what we could improve on.  Using this review, we have decided on our new topics of focus for Eco-Schools for 2013-2015!

These are:
- Litter
- Energy
- Health and wellbeing

We have asked every tutor group in the school to complete an eco ideas sheet, asking for ideas on actions for these and other Eco topics.   We can then put these into an action plan for this year. There are lots of exciting ideas already - keep those completed sheets coming in please!  We hope to make some real progress as a school on these three issues over the next two years, as well as continuing all the other eco-related work that is part of our life at Currie High.  If you'd like to get involved in the Eco Committee new members are always welcome, pupils, staff and parents. Just see Rachel Avery in the Environment office in the LRC on a Wednesday or a Thursday.

New eco display

The eco committee have been working on a new display that highlights all the fantastic work done at Currie over the last two years. We've been focussing on three different Eco topics:
- Litter
- Food and the Environment
- Sustaining Our World

The Eco Committee decided to make a tree with three parts, and show our actions in words and pictures as leaf shapes.

Early next session we'll do an Environmental Review of the whole school to see how we're doing and get ideas on how to improve. Then we'll choose some new topics to focus our efforts on.  If you have any ideas on how Currie High can be more sustainable please let someone from the Eco Committee know, or put your idea into the Suggestion Box in the LRC.

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!

 

CurriEco Grant Scheme final results....

The school received £3500 from PiP for environmental improvement projects in the school. The Eco-Committee organised for pupils and staff to apply for some of this money.  After careful consideration, the ‘winning’ applications are below.  Money remaining = £362.50 to be allocated on a rolling basis.

Project	Cost	Who is involved
Supporting S1 SDE projects. All S1s do a practical  project to improve the environment (9 weeks at the end of  their Sustainable Development Education course). £40 per class maximum per year.	£1000 over 4 years	Mr Toal and SDE teachers (Ms Bond, Ms Barlow, Mr Radford and all S1 pupils)
Eco-Art posters. Two or three large scale (A0) posters professionally printed onto boards of eco-themed Art work for permanent display in foyer.	£300 max	Mrs Steel & A&D pupils
Redecorate the school canteen using eco-themed decorations (wall mural and on lockers)	£300 max	Katherine Macfarlane & Joanne Pryde S6 + JASS group + Advanced Higher Art pupils + Mrs Steel
Eco-Film competition - Pupils make a short film on an environmental topic. Shortlist shown at lunchtime and best voted for by pupil audience. Entries used on website, shown in foyer, at parents evenings etc. £100 each year. (£50 1st prize, £30 2nd prize, £20 3rd prize)	£300 over 3 years	Mr Farren + CurriEco team
Bird boxes and materials for making birdboxes. Installing some long-life woodcrete boxes to start monitoring their success in the Nest Record Scheme from this Spring. Wooden boxes made for common and threatened species by CDT pupils later this session and in subsequent years.	£250 max £100 for woodcrete boxes, £150 for materials	Mr Walton + Mr Watson + S5/6 CDT pupils + group of  pupil volunteers as bird box monitors
Watering system for greenhouse. A simple automatic timed watering system would mean we can use the greenhouse to grow fruit, vegetables etc as they wouldn’t die over the holidays.	£280	Rachel Avery + Int Biology + Other pupils
Wireless bird box camera to show live footage of the  inside of a bird box on the screen in the foyer	£183.50	Mr Walton + other staff
Bed of soft fruit bushes at front of school and manure for school orchard, vegetable boxes and soft fruit.	£181	EDGE Explorer Scouts (Led by Owen & Trish Davies, parents)
Pin badges for pupils in the Eco Committee & working on Eco projects in the school to raise profile of Eco activities.	£100 max	Clara Morriss & Karen Craigie  S6 (Eco Committee)
Big pupil-designed stickers on litter bins in school foyer and outside, encouraging people not to drop litter	£70	Gemma King 6K2 with S2 JASS litter group
Native wildflowers for a wetland in Roleys Wood	£68	EDGE Explorer Scouts (Led by Owen & Trish Davies, parents)
Solar powered fountain for wildlife pond in Quadrangle. To oxygenate water to help the health of the pond and as an example of renewable energy.	£65	Mr Hermiston
Three thermos jugs for serving Fair Trade teas and coffees at events, parents evenings etc. This raises money for good causes such as our sponsored pupils in Chogoria High School, Kenya	£40	Fair Trade group

Eco-Schools display

The Eco -Committee have done a colourful display to show what we're doing towards our next Green Flag for Eco-Schools.  The display shows photos of what we are doing towards our Food & Environment, Litter and Sustaining Our World topics, and includes our Action Plans for this session.

This display in the main foyer has been up for a community energy fayre, PiP meeting and other events at the school. Lots of people can see the Eco work we've been up to and are planning for the rest of this year!

Earthship Energy Fair

On Saturday 6 October Currie hosted the Earthship Energy Fair, held to celebrate workshops provided by Sustainable Communities Initiatives for P6 classes in our associated primary schools.

The Fair was opened by Alistair Darling MP and included stalls showcasing the work of pupils at Currie High School.

Alistair Darling and Johanna Carrie of Transition Edinburgh Pentlands

Stalls from the Earthship Energy Fair

We launch our new Grant Scheme!

On Monday we launch our brand new CurriEco Grant Scheme! We were lucky enough to be donated £3500 from PiP to use for environmental projects in the school. We wanted to give everyone the chance to decide how the money was spent! 

The Eco Committee have been working hard to come up with a simple application form (designed by Noorislam Uddin). Pupils, parents and staff are encouraged to come up with ideas to improve the environment of the school, or to help make us more sustainable.  The Eco Committee, with support from the Sustainable School Working Group, will decide which projects will get the money. Get those ideas coming in - before the deadline of 12 October!

CurriEco work continues...

We've not been back at school a month yet and lots of Eco work has already happened this term. New products were launched by the Fair Trade group for the Friday tuckshops, the S3 xl group have been exploring the school grounds and pruning trees in the wildlife corridor, and our Eco Committee continues to meet with new enthusiastic members.

Our fantastic Eco Committee for the 2012-13 session....

We elected people for different roles within the committee (Organiser, Minutes Taker, PR, Litter Leader etc) and continued to plan our publicity campaign and launch of a new grant scheme. The school was given money from Parents in Partnership (PiP) for environmental improvements last term. We're organising a simple application form so any pupil or member of staff can apply to the Eco Committee for some money to support an eco project.

Presentation success

Noorislam Uddin, Michael McGlade and Karen Craigie represented the school at the Eco-Schools in Edinburgh celebration event yesterday at Edinburgh Napier University.  They delivered an engaging presentation of our Eco work relating to food to over 120 pupils and teachers from across the city, encouraging them all to do their bit.

As part of the event we were awarded a certificate of our 4th Green Flag by Councillor Hinds.

Currieco tip of the week

Currie pupils in Earth Hour launch

A group of Eco Committee pupils participated in the Scottish launch of WWF's Earth Hour at Edinburgh Castle on 31st March. It was a great event to be part of, as these photos show!

Our Fourth Green Flag

Some of our Eco Committee with our Fourth Green Flag from Eco Schools Scotland. We're all very happy to have received this award. We're one of only five High Schools in the whole of Scotland to have our Fourth Green Flag.

World Pizza

The Eco Committee today finished our Food Miles display for the foyer. We think it’s important to understand how far food often has to travel before it ends up on your plate!

Pizza miles

The Eco Committee met yesterday and started making a new display for the Eco board in the foyer. Designed by one of our S4 pupil members, its a huge pizza highlighting where all the different ingredients from the pizza might come from.

Our Fourth Green Flag!

We heard from Eco Schools Scotland today that we've been awarded our fourth Green Flag! This is recognition of all the great work we've done over the last two years, particularly in the fields of Waste Minimisation, Biodiversity and Litter. Hurray for us!