Vision

As a school community we are committed to recycling and reusing whenever possible. We wondered about items that couldn’t be recycled such as the plastic covers for water bottles and other drinks. We attended an online conference on Climate Change and learned a lot about how plastics affect our coastlines and water ways. Living on an island means that water, marine life, and marine habitats are especially important to us. Our school is located next to a protected wetland area where we observe ducks and other animals throughout the year.

Ultimately, we wanted to find a way to repurpose plastic caps so they wouldn’t end up in the landfills, oceans, rivers or other environments. We decided to create painted mural boards filled in with bottle caps to save these caps from become waste.

Action

We investigated bottle cap projects, decided on themes, sketched and arrived at agreed upon images of under the sea, the local wetland- Torbay Gully, bumblebees, butterflies, flowers, icebergs and Torbay beach.
We created and labelled a central cap collection area and distributed a digital flyer for bottle cap donations.
We drew, painted and filled in our mural with caps. One themed panel for each Grade 4 class will be displayed at our school.

Reflection & Celebration

This project was a coordinated effort between our teachers, reading specialist, TLAs and most importantly… our students! Our students were excited to be a part of a project that was actively saving things from landfills and highlighting the need to reduce waste and repurpose whenever we can.
Students actively engaged in this project. It required them to apply skills of communication, creativity, collaboration, character, critical thinking and citizenship, all six of the global competencies today’s learners need for their future and the future of our planet.
While our Grade 4s move on this June to a new school, we are excited to say that through this project they have inspired a legacy project that we will continue in our school for future classes.