SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT… PRIORY SCHOOL SOURCE TO SEA – ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOP FOR YEAR 7 On 4 November, the Year 7 cohort at Priory School was invited to take part in a hands-on workshop delivered by Creative Harbour and The Environment Agency, in association with Portsmouth Climate Festival. Preventing Plastic Pollution, from source to sea is designed to educate and engage young adults on the subject of plastic pollution, and the issues that make it one of the greatest challenges of our age. Students learnt about how plastic is made, where it ends up, and how to actively reduce future pollution. The workshops harness digital technology and STEM and were interactive and fun, led by specialists from The Environment Agency.
As a round-up to the workshop students were introduced to the app jetsam.tech working with University of Portsmouth www. port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/new-app-to-tacklesources-of-plastic-pollution-in-portsmouth Students were also encouraged to form an environmental pledge to reduce their plastic usage.
Students listened to a talk from specialist scientists on the impacts of plastic pollution in our oceans, and waterways and following this, took part in a discussion regarding the pollution found on our local beaches, waterways and the surrounding nature reserves. Having considered local impacts, students then expanded their thinking towards plastic as a global issue and were coming up with Ideas and solutions as to how we can tackle this. In small groups the students took part in activities and experiments, such as looking at the difference between how regular and biodegradable wet wipes break down in water, the different properties of various plastic items and their sources, all the while coming up with ideas to reduce the amount of plastic we use. They all took part in ‘Beach Detectives’, ‘Plastics and Sustainability’, and ‘Impacts of Plastic Pollution’ group activities. “From the activities, I realised that I should check things at home to make sure we buy eco-friendly as much as possible,” said student Daniel. Dr Kelly Haynes - STEM Engagement Officer - Preventing Plastic Pollution Project Environment Agency South West said: “Thank you for allowing us to come in to work with your lovely Year 7 cohort, they are a real credit to you. Your young people were so well behaved, interested and really seemed to engage with the topic giving us anecdotes of plastic pollution they have come across and different suggestions to reduce it and reduce their own plastic use, which was brilliant!” The last task involved using the app Slido.com on their iPads to take part in a “Plastic Health check”. Students were asked to go through a questionnaire as a group and identify as many items they had on them either in their bag or their clothes that contained plastic. It was certainly an eye opener for most of them and they were shocked that so many of their everyday items contained plastic! “During the tasks we identified plastic that appears on our coastline. There was a shocking amount of it and we shouldn’t accept this!” commented student Libby.
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