Tread Lightly Caravan

Every class at Cockle Bay visited the Tread Lightly Caravan, and it was Room 18's turn on Friday.  We were split into groups and rotated around five different activities to do with Sustainability, that is being gentle to our planet so that we look after it for the future ('treading lightly' and not stomping around).

At one station, we found out about electricity and which light bulbs used the least and which the most.   We even had a go at making electricity using our own muscle power!

Charlotte is making electricity to make the light bulb go.

Then it was Oliver's turn.

Watch Kadence use her muscle power!

At the recycling station, we found out how to sort rubbish for recycling so that it can be processed correctly.  We also found out how much room landfill rubbish takes up under the ground, even after 100 years, so it is important to recycle or reuse when we can.

Here we are looking at home rubbish compacts in the ground after 100 years - not very much!

Here we are learning to sort rubbish correctly.

Another station taught us about the storm water drains and why it is important to keep them just for rain water, and not chemicals and paints that would then end up in our oceans.

We learned about all the liquids that sometimes go down the storm water drains.

When we went outside, we played a snakes and ladders game about the environment, except that the dice was huge (and quite bouncy) and the snakes were lizards and the ladders were plant vines.

One station was actually inside the Tread Lightly Caravan.  We could see all sorts of insects under a huge microscope.  We learned to identify honey bees, native bees and wasps by looking at their physical features.  You could even see tiny balls of pollen on the hairs of the honey bees, ready to pollinate flowers, fruit trees and vegetables in our garden.

At the end of the Tread Lightly Caravan session, we all chose an action (a pledge) we would try to do to care for the environment.  The TLC teachers took a photo of us holding our pledge, and we took our TLC homework home so we can read about it and talk about it with our family.