What the Environmental Portfolio was up to in Term 2!

D&T upcycled toys – phocus article

Written by Talia Matthews

A Term of Upcycling! 

The 2022 Environmental Portfolio has aimed to raise awareness and introduce fun, collaborative events throughout the year. This term, we introduced an upcycling project in Design and Technology, ran a bottle top and bread tag collection drive, and partnered with Westerford High School to clean the Liesbeek River (see the Facebook article here). Environmental Ambassadors have also, regularly and dedicatedly, been cleaning out paper recycling bins implemented in almost all highschool classrooms in Term 1.

D&T Upcycled Toys

In Term 2, Mr Tate ran an environmental Design & Technology project proposed by the 2022 Environmental Portfolio, headed by Talia Matthews and Matthew Facey. The year 7s made Early Childhood Development (ECD) games out of recycled, household materials. From bean-bag toss to magnetic pizzas to match the colour/number games, they thought of everything! These toys will be donated to a pair of organisations who have recently joined forces. EKO (Earth Kids Org) is a youth-led organisation that has a passion for saving the environment and equal education rights for children and The Chaeli Campaign has a mission to improve the quality of life of children and youth with mental and physical disabilities. EKO and The Chaeli Campaign will distribute these toys to children in under-resourced areas and ECD Centres in Philippi, Plumstead and Bergvliet, bringing them Christmas in July! The year 7s’ creativity is outstanding, they produced work of a very high standard and should be proud of themselves.

Take a look at some of the games: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders 

Learn more about The Chaeli Campaign: https://chaelicampaign.org/ 

Tops and Tags

In line with our theme of upcycling, we ran a bottle top and bread tag collection drive during June and July. We collected over 500 breadtags and a bucket full of bottle tops! These have been donated to an organisation called QuadPara that makes wheelchairs out of these recycled plastics. The high school’s growing enthusiasm for saving the environment is a pleasure to be a part of.