Our main campaign this year has been to raise awareness of single use plastics through our #NaeStrawAtAw campaign. The school had established a link with Living Seas (an element of the Scottish Wildlife Trust) and we created a project to ask businesses to replace single use plastic straws with alternatives. We worked with the Ullapool PS P7 class to establish this in Ullapool during a visit in September 2017. The locals backed the campaign and Ullapool declared itself plastic straw free in December 2017. A great success for Living Seas and the pupils.
“We created a project to ask businesses to replace single use plastic straws with alternatives.”
Successes
The Ocean Defenders have been very successful in spreading the campaign to other schools and businesses. They have been successful in getting Harvester, Nando's and Marks and Spencer’s to back the campaign at The Fort Shopping Area. They have convinced Glasgow City Council to remove straws and met with their local MP who was asked to take the campaign to Westminster and did! Cal Mac have removed their plastic straws from all of their fleet and have won the backing of Best Bar None, Glasgow, The Hydro and Scotrail.
“Cal Mac have removed their plastic straws from all of their fleet and won the backing of Best Bar None, Glasgow, The Hydro and Scotrail.”
The pupils are also starting to spread the word and roll out the campaign to other schools on the Isle of Arran, Ardrossan, Kingussie and Oban. We are developing a website whereby schools can download resources and get more information in how to roll the campaign out.
Grass roots
Through working with the fantastic MCSUK, the pupils adopted and through taking part in beach cleans and auditing what was found, the children have seen the impact of plastic first hand. From our infants doing virtual beach cleans of Katie Morag's island to our pupils working on beaches at Troon, Prestwick and Arrochar, our pupils have seen that change needs to come about. We thought that by creating a grass roots campaign where children take responsibility for reducing the amount of single use plastic being used in their own town/area, that we could make a significant impact in a short space of time.
Skills and confidence
From organising trips, creating campaign posters, developing resources for websites and using social media, the children have gained confidence and experience in many skills including public speaking, persuasive writing techniques.
Watching the children gain confidence in speaking has been most encouraging particularly in their presentations to companies such as Tetrapak and Muller, as well as Glasgow's own Cordia. Addressing the companies who would have to invest time and money to bring about the changes we were asking for was always going to be tough. However we are delighted to hear Muller announce that they are going to set up the chance for all schools they supply with milk to recycle the plastic straw currently used and are working with Tetrapak to replace the plastic straw within the year. They have stated that our Ocean Defenders were the catalyst for this.
Small voices do indeed travel far...and big organisations are beginning to listen!
“Watching the children gain confidence in speaking has been most encouraging.”
More information on Sunnyside
Sunnyside became a School of Conservation in 2014. We have created 7 Steps that our school pupils work through:
- Our 'One'derful World – P1 pupils explore nature around them and how to care for our natural environment.
- Stepping 'Two' It – P2 pupils find out about recycling and organise clean ups of local natural areas.
- Flying 'Three' – P3 pupils are ornithologists finding out about both marine and garden birds as well as the impressive raptors.
- Step Up 'Four' Nature – P4 pupils look at native species and rewilding. They are currently RSPB ambassadors for the water vole. They investigate local wildlife through tracking and using camera traps.
- A High 'Five' for Nature – P5 pupils are Wildlife Warriors and investigate wildlife crimes such as rhino and elephant poaching, canned hunting and the effect of palm oil on orangutan habitats.
- 'Six' Degrees Below – P6 are Polar Explorers who campaign against global warming with their 'Bear Aware' campaign as well as campaigning against subjects such as drilling in the Arctic and polar bears being kept in unsuitable conditions.
- 'Seven' the Planet – P7 pupils are our Ocean Defenders who campaign against cetaceans in captivity, monitor the Taiji Dolphin Drives and have led the whole school campaign against plastic pollution over the last couple of years.
