Throwing away waste and recycling is something that these students do every day, however many of them had never thought about what happens after the bin is emptied. To help explain the processes used in waste management, students took part in several hands-on activities to understand more about the importance of recycling and the impact that this has on our ever-changing world. They were encouraged to use their knowledge about what they throw away at home and challenged to see if they could improve how they handle their recycling and rubbish.
Waste Education Manager, Jonathan Crisp, welcomed the students at the Education Centre in Waterbeach. Jonathan led the students through the activities and helped them to think more about how we recycle effectively. Students learnt about decomposition and the varying rates of common waste objects, sorted rubbish into blue, green and black bins and made recycled newspaper pots for onion bulbs using the compost made on-site. They were also taken on a tour to see some of the different ways in which waste is sorted and shown the landfill site, an area that at the start of the day none of the students knew existed.
During the day students were asked to work in small groups and encouraged to develop skills they will need throughout their lives such as communication, teamwork and problem solving. By working not only with their classmates but also the Cambridge LaunchPad ambassadors, students improve their ability to work with people of different ages, backgrounds and job roles. At the end of the day, the five students who best displayed their understanding of these values were invited to attend the annual LaunchPad award ceremony and additional prize trip.
Year 5 student from Cherry Hinton Primary School, said “It was really amazing to see on the tour that if you don’t recycle plastic properly then it gets everywhere, even in the compost! I really enjoyed the activities and will be teaching my parents how to be better at recycling at home.”
Sally Haiselden, Deputy Head and Y5 Teacher at Cherry Hinton CofE Primary School, said: “This was a really interesting and important trip for the pupils. They found out where the contents of their bin goes and more importantly were reminded of the environmental and global challenges of recycling in their future. Some of them might have the creativity to come up with the solution!”
Jonathan Crisp, Education Manager, Amey said: “This has been an excellent opportunity to highlight importance of recycling and the career opportunities which exist within the waste industry. It was great to see the enthusiasm all the children had towards wanting to help other family members recycle more in order to help protect the planet and its precious resources.”
Molly Askham, STEM Outreach Co-ordinator from Form the Future CIC, said “Today has been a great opportunity to show the students how something they do every day creates jobs which they may want to do when they leave school. So many of them knew that they should recycle but didn’t necessarily know why, being able to give them the context of how these processes affect our lives has been an invaluable learning experience.”