WANBO

'Wanbo' is a student-driven environmental group.  We aim to involve the whole school in our environmental projects, to initiate and motivate the student body to drive the school towards a more sustainable way of life.  This means that rather than teachers giving out instructions and being the leaders, they guide a group of sixth formers who encourage the younger year groups to play their role.

 

To mark the beginning of our series of campaigns, we presented a school viewing of 'Age of Stupid', a shocking, yet inspiring movie that we hoped would trigger enthusiasm and motivation for the environment among the community. Following the viewing, we spoke in a number of assemblies to address how each student could help, including a session on top green tips for interim week from our Green expert!

 

Within the sixth formers, we split up into action and communications teams. The Actions team is in charge of specific projects from the gardening sessions to the solar panel installation. The Communications team is responsible for updating Island School on the latest from 'Wanbo' to maintain Island School's enthusiasm. The Communications Team is also working together with FIT (Island School's student union party) members to launch a water bottle campaign in hope to stop the sale of bottled drinks in school.

 

The Communications Team is also involved in promoting recycling in Island School. This is an important project as the money generated from recycling will be reinvested into other projects funded by Wanbo. This project has been launched most enthusiastically by all the student representatives as we observed the vast amount of recyclable items thrown out by the school each day, and we hope to see great returns from the school's efforts.

 

Another of 'Wanbo's' projects is the  Cap and Trade scheme, where the Island School community works together to reduce our energy consumption by 10%. Through this campaign, we hope to instill a habit of energy conservation into the community, ensuring that everyone does what little they can to help the environment, so that these habits can be adopted even when students leave Island School. On top of this, beach clean- ups to various locations including Lamma Island have also been organised by sixth formers; these trips were fun, yet fulfilling, offering students a chance to interact with nature.

 

Moreover, 'Wanbo' have been involved in a variety of small activities to keep the momentum going and to show students that being environmentally friendly can happen in different forms. Student representatives have come up with 3 initiatives that their forms and/or houses be involved in. These range from dark registrations, to vegetarian days, to using the energy saving Blackle search engine to the novel idea of smoothie sale from local fruit sellers.