The Eco Ambassadors have been active at the school since 2009. After the success of retaining the Green Flag Award back in March 2015, the new members are keen to make their mark.

You can read the lastest report on sustainability and the work of our ambassadors here.

We are working on many levels within the school but also hope to start to build new relationships with both smaller and larger institutions t help share both our good work but also gain new information and ideas to help expand the activity and also awareness of the Eco Ambassadors within Parklands.

The Eco Ambassadors are currently working in many areas of the school including the following:

The school environment. We as a team are always looking for new ways to use our knowledge and understanding of ecosystems and habitats to help build new if not build on previous habitats already within the school grounds. To help pupils understand about sustainable development pupils are able to liaise with the Site Manager and Ground Staff, allowing the pupils to also suggest how the development could be made more sustainable.

Community links. At present we have an active link with the development of Astley Park, including the development of the new play area built this year. There is hope that we are able to expand our links to larger institutions but also share our skills with the Primary Schools in the area.

Litter is one aspect of the Green Flag Award that we as a school are very good with, but to help keep pupils aware of how to deal with litter appropriately we will be joining the “Big Tidy” once again this year to ensure that the school grounds are kept clean, and we recycle where possible. One of the current projects is turning the pallets that were delivered with water from United Utilities in the summer into external flower beds, thus emphasising the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle motto.

Water conservation again is another aspect that the Eco-Ambassadors are involved with as recent plans have come to fruition with water saving taps in bathrooms installed. WaterAid is also supported at school through assemblies to make people aware of what clean water can mean to a small village in the poorest areas of the World.

Energy is another aspect that work has been done in school with the aid of the Eco Ambassadors with plenty of room for improvement yet to be done in terms of becoming more energy savvy with lights and the heating system of the school. The hope is that pupils can also use real data within curriculum lessons to then help analyse the effectiveness of the schemes put in place or ones that we hope to install in the near future.

Some of the aims this year for the new and existing Eco Ambassadors to work on are:

  • Building new community links
  • Developing an edible campus
  • Growing vegetables on site for the use in the school kitchen
  • Assemblies to help provide the pupils an insight into our work
  • Take part in the Energy week in November 2015
  • Create an alternative transport scheme across the whole school
  • Tackle the ever growing problem of your carbon footprint
  • Cake sales and other money raising initiatives to help buy new equipment

“To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

Theodore Roosevelt (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/conservation)