Australian School Sustainability | aquaBUBBLER Drinking Fountains

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All things green in Emerald

Environmental & sustainability education at Emerald Primary School is a great example of a school living what it teaches.

Nestled in a beautiful, picturesque part of Victoria it’s easy to understand why the school community is inspired to look after the environment.

Emerald Primary School container deposit scheme

Leigh Johnson, the environmental and sustainability coordinator, says the students love being part of the process: “It’s in and about their world. It’s about learning by actually putting ideas into practice”.

Some of the many impressive projects include:

— A school windmill – creating sustainable energy for the school & pumping water into the schools taps

— water tanks – storing rainwater for use in the school’s toilets

— a container deposit scheme

— school weather station – measuring temperature, air moisture, wind chill, air pressure and a rain gauge

Mr Johnson adds, “The idea is to ‘normalise’ the experiences the kids learn about in environmental studies. So that they expect to see veggie patches everywhere, wind turbines and solar heating.”

There is a “Loo Crew”, a group of students who want to help raise awareness of the sanitation crisis facing many countries (with the assistance of WaterAid – see http://www.wateraid.org/) . And the “Don’t Palm Us Off” crew – a group of students who want to educate the school community about the harmful effects of the palm oil trade and the threat to orang-utan habitats.

Emerald Primary School Students open their Yarra Valley Water Choose Tap aquaBUBBLER with water bottle refill station

“These student-led initiatives are examples of where social action meets sustainability”. These activities are part of students embracing their responsibility and contributing to the wider world and sustainable communities.

Emerald Primary School recently received its own aquaBUBBLER as part of Yarra Valley Water’s “Choose Tap” initiative.

aquaBUBBLER is proud to be a prize partner of Cool Australia’s ENVIROWEEK.

ENVIROWEEK is all about young Australians taking positive action to raise awareness for a sustainable future.

From August 25-31 schools, classes, and individual students are taking up the green challenge. There’s a “Green Thumb” challenge to plant a veggie patch, a “Shopper Challenge” to resist buying anything new for a week ,and a “Sparky” challenge to save energy.

Our favourite is the Go Tap challenge – swapping all bottled and canned drinks for refreshing and healthy tap water!

There are competitions and prizes – an Eco-Fundraiser competition and a Creator competition. And best of all you could win an aquaBUBBLER with water bottle refill station. For more details see http://www.enviroweek.org/.

Kangaroo Ground Primary School installs their “Choose Tap” aquaBUBBLER

Kangaroo Ground Primary School has just installed their Choose Tap aquaBUBBLER. “Our school has two aquaBUBBLERs already and jumped at the opportunity to install another one,” said Kangaroo Ground Primary School, principal Laurie Murray.

Kangaroo Ground Primary School students reveille in their success with a cool drink of water

Kangaroo Ground Primary School students enjoying the Choose Tap aqauBUBBLER with water bottle refill station.

“The kids love using the aquaBUBBLERS. They are specially designed for them and encourage great health and hydration habits. The Water Bottle Fundraiser meant that the school had already raised the money required to have the aquaBUBBLER installed. It’s a great idea. Other schools should jump on board!”

“…It’s a great idea. Other schools should jump on board!”

aquaBUBBLER has teamed up with Yarra Valley Water’s Choose Tap campaign – an initiative which promotes the environmental and health benefits of drinking tap water.

aquabubbler drinking water fountain with water bottle refill station

Yarra Valley Water Choose Tap aquaBUBBLER drinking fountain with water bottle refill station

Schools in the Yarra Valley Water area can receive a FREE aquaBUBBLER – the modern, stylish, environmentally-friendly drinking fountain with water bottle refill station.

There are only 100 aquaBUBBLERS available

aquaBUBBLER and the “Choose Tap” campaign are the perfect combination – there is no better way to encourage kids to drink tap water than to provide a new, inviting aquaBUBBLER drinking fountain with water bottle refill station that is especially designed with schools [or “kids“] in mind!

To qualify, the school needs to participate in the Drink Bottle Fundraiser – the school purchases a minimum of 50 Choose Tap drink bottles at cost price (only $4 each), to on-sell to their community for a profit. They retail for up to $15 each. Alternatively, the school can purchase 10 1 litre Choose Tap sports bottles (which come with a free sports bottle carrier).

For more details, visit www.yvw.com.au/Home/Inyourcommunity/ChooseTap/index.htm

Love your planet? Love your aquaBUBBLER!

aquaBUBBLER is very proud to be supporting Cool Australia’s 2013 Love your Planet fundraising lunch next week.

Cool Australia is a not-for-profit organisation whose work is very close to our hearts: they are dedicated to teaching younger generations about the importance of sustainability and protecting our environment.

Part of Cool Australia’s charter is to empower educators by providing free, Australian curriculum-linked environmental resources to educators and students. Their team of leading teachers, curriculum writers and sustainability education experts create original learning activities that teachers can download and take straight into the classroom.

Cool Australia founder and CEO, Jason Kimberley said, “It’s great to have aquaBUBBLER on board. Their long-established collaboration with schools on issues of sustainability, and their development of a product which responds to many of the environmental challenges the world currently faces, make them a perfect orgnisation for Cool Australia to be associated with.”

Cool Australia’s annual Love Your Planet lunch involves an auction to raise money for their education programs. This year we are donating an aquaBUBBLER drinking fountain, and are delighted to be in the company of IKEA, Quicksilver, Top Shop, Willow, Mr Wolf, Kozminsky, Silo, Mars Gallery, Bounce, and Husk who are also contributing items.

At the lunch, teachers and students will share their experiences about how Cool Australia’s resources have helped them fulfill their potential in sustainability education. The fundraising target is $60,000, and all funds will go towards further development of Cool Australia’s education resources.

Well well well! Here’s an inspired way to celebrate sustainability week!

At the end of each year Epping Views Primary school hosts a Sustainability Celebration afternoon to celebrate their impressive range of sustainability activities (they recently won Resource Smart School of the Year.)

They usually gather together to compete in a fun-filled competition to test their knowledge about sustainability. But this year they decided to celebrate by sharing how fortunate they are to have clean water and sanitation by raising money for an extremely worthy cause. They undertook a week of activities and events to raise $1425 to help an African community get improved access to clean water.

The program, run by World Vision, uses the money to combine water infrastructure (i.e., sinking new wells, repairing damaged hand pumps and building toilets) with hygiene education to help stop the spread of deadly waterborne diseases and ensure better health for children in impoverished communities.

Epping Views Primary school also made student education part of their fundraising process. They kicked off the week with an assembly of around 600 people watching a World Vision video clip called A Day in the Life of Lucy. Students, staff and parents were all very moved, and this led to fantastic involvement in scheduled classroom and lunchtime activities, a ‘sustainability dress up’ day, selling badges and drink bottles, and an all-in, hands on activity making the word WATER from coin donations, which alone raised $334.

“We’ve been learning how important it is to drink water to stay healthy”, commented one student, “so we are very happy to help other kids who need water too but can’t just go to a tap like we can”.

Jan Hare, the school’s Wellbeing and Sustainability Teacher, added: “Sustainability is about helping to build better communities everywhere. That includes building an active community spirit here at the school regarding global issues like access to clean water, to building stronger, healthier villages in places like Africa”.

Read up on water World Vision’s work towards water sanitation and hygiene here. Or get their series of 6 lesson plans on water and other teaching material here.

The University of Melbourne’s Go Tap! shortlisted at Green Gown Awards

Having been directly involved with the University of Melbourne’s GoTap! campaign last year, aquaBUBBLER was thrilled to see it recently shortlisted at the 2012 Australasian Green Gown Awards. The awards recognise excellence in sustainability and there were many worthy winners. (You can read all about them at the Green Gown Awards website).

Anti-Plastic-Bottle

In 2011, Go Tap! saw the University of Melbourne’s Southbank and Burnley campuses go completely disposable bottled water free, and their Parkville campus is preparing to follow suit. The University is working with companies such as aquaBUBBLER to implement sustainable measures and increase community awareness about plastic water bottle concerns.

aquaBUBBLER’s Brendan Lynch wasn’t surprised that GoTap! was shortlisted; the University of Melbourne is using its considerable influence to help reshape ideas about water consumption, and this campaign has proactively engaged their 58,000 students and staff to make more sustainable choices.

“Go Tap! was superbly executed”, said Brendan. “It covered all bases every step of the way: comprehensive research, new infrastructure installed, and education and engagement across the board. Student groups helped generate awareness, and strategies were developed to encourage tenants, onsite retailers and vending machine operators to discontinue bottled water sales.”

“It’s set an inspiring standard that other tertiary institutions are following: Monash and Victoria Universities are preparing to launch similar campaigns.”

To allay concerns about not having access to portable water, free reusable water bottles were distributed to all new students during Orientation Week and a free iPhone app, Water Water Everywhere, shows where water bottle refill stations are located.

And in response to suggestions by the Australasian Bottled Water Institute that water bottle bans achieve little if other bottled drinks remain, Sustainability Manager Harry Troedel said, “We’d love to see all plastic use reduced, but free soft drink or juice fountains just aren’t available yet! Meanwhile, there is simply no arguing that going water-bottle free is the environmentally and socially responsible choice when refilling our water bottles is such a simple option”.

Producing, transporting and refrigerating bottled water is energy and resource intensive, and plastic water bottles make up a large proportion of landfill. Melbourne has access to some of the world’s purest tap water and GoTap! makes it easy to access this bounty and minimise environmental impacts..

GoTap! is part of a growing global movement to reduce plastic water bottle use.

Eltham North Primary School Worm Farm

When Eltham North Primary School contacted Brendan Lynch (Managing Director, aquaBUBBLER) to tell him how they managed to take aquaBUBBLER’s environmentally sustainable philosophy one step further, he was thrilled!

Eltham North Primary School had invested in five new aquaBUBBLER drinking fountains to replace their outdated water troughs.

Around the time that the old troughs were being removed, Jo Harwood—Eltham North Primary School’s Sustainable Schools Coordinator—was facing some challenges with the school’s considerable compost projects. How to fix issues with vinegar flies, rodents and general compost odour?

A quiet word with the school’s maintenance manager saw the troughs quickly plucked from the rubbish, and in less than a week they had been converted into a 10-metre long worm farm.

Twelve months later, the worm farm remains rodent, fly and odour-free. But even better, the vermiculture and liquid fertiliser it produces provide a much needed boost to the school’s rambling gardens.

“We’re located in Nillumbik,” explains Jo, “which is a Wurundjeri word meaning shallow earth. Historically it’s been really hard to grow anything in the poor soil here, so the rich, organic output from the worm farm is just what we need.”

“I noticed an old bathtub being used to house a worm farm at Edendale Community Environment Farm just up the road,” Jo admits,

“and Edendale’s Rachel Bishop and I had a ‘Eureka’ moment when we spotted the old water troughs!”

“The worm farm uses about 20% of the school’s foodscraps and also a significant amount of our

shredded waste paper.

The rest goes into our regular compost bins. We plan to expand the worm farm though, because unlike the bins, there are no flies, rodents or odour.”

“And let’s face it—worm farms are just more fun!”

Jo insists that worm farms are so simple that anyone can make one—and she suggests that everyone should!

“They’re just great. The kids love ours, with many volunteering to help manage it. The farm also brings many aspects of our curriculum to life. Plus it’s cheap, effective and great for the environment. Here in Nillumbik we need the worm farm produce for our garden, but other schools could sell it if they didn’t need it.”

What a perfect way to finance your next aquaBUBBLER!

For a step by step guide on how to convert drinking troughs into worm farms, click on the link below…

www.aquabubbler.co.nz/WormFarm.pdf

Australia Turns Green on World Stage!

Huge congratulations to Melbourne’s Bentleigh Secondary College, who this week won the International Green award as the world’s most sustainable educational institution.

image care of econews.com

What an absolutely outstanding achievement, and one that simply makes our hearts sing here at aquaBUBBLER!

Bill Thomas, Head of Sustainable Practices at the College accepted the award in front of 400 international representatives in London, and said:
“Working for sustainable futures is an investment, through young people, in the future of our planet. Sustainability is a cornerstone of our educational practices at Bentleigh Secondary College and of our wider community and we are thrilled to have our work recognised at an international level and to be in such good company.”

Also in attendance was Australia’s sustainability industry spokesperson Anne-Maree Huxley, who added to the good news:
“It was not long ago that Australia was considered in some circles to be 10 years behind in sustainability innovation and governance. …Having five Australian organisations as finalists and Bentleigh Secondary College as a global winner, I think it’s fair to say we’ve caught up and in some sectors are clearly leading the way”.

We couldn’t agree more. Keep up the great work Australia!

Read more about the sustainability projects at Bentleigh Secondary College.

Archive for the ‘Australian School Sustainability’ Category

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