An­na-Lisa Paul

Pupils of the La Hor­quet­ta North Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School are be­ing en­cour­aged to prac­tice en­vi­ron­men­tal clean­li­ness.

Dur­ing an en­vi­ron­men­tal project, in which they part­nered with the Ari­ma/San­ta Rosa Li­ons Club and the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the pupils re­moved 47,572 plas­tic bot­tles from their area dur­ing a one-month pe­ri­od.

Sanc­tioned by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion—the project was con­cep­tu­alised by the Ari­ma/San­ta Rosa Li­ons Club which pro­vid­ed the garbage bags for the col­lec­tion of the bot­tles and was al­so in­stru­men­tal in con­vinc­ing the school’s prin­ci­pal to join hands with them.

Of­fi­cials said: “The prin­ci­pal and staff en­cour­aged their stu­dents and the par­ents sup­port­ed their charges in the ef­fort.”

The pupils were taught about the dan­gers of im­prop­er dis­pos­al of plas­tics in­to the en­vi­ron­ment.

They al­so learned how both land and sea crea­tures were harmed when such prod­ucts were not dis­posed of prop­er­ly and safe­ly.

The re­moval of the bot­tles ex­pand­ed in­to a com­mu­ni­ty project as res­i­dents were urged to reuse plas­tics where pos­si­ble in or­der to have less be­ing dis­posed of in the en­vi­ron­ment, which led to many cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive de­signs for both in­door and out­door dec­o­ra­tion.

A Stan­dard Two class al­so cre­at­ed char­ac­ters in sup­port of the sto­ry Char­lotte’s Web, which was one of the many forms of the HFLE cur­ricu­lum be­ing used in pri­ma­ry schools.

A Li­ons of­fi­cial said: “At the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the project, it was ob­vi­ous that the zeal to prop­er­ly dis­pose of plas­tics was still high be­cause stu­dents were not on­ly still bring­ing in bot­tles for dis­pos­al but they were still cre­at­ing re­cy­cled items.”

“This au­gurs well for this par­tic­u­lar group of stu­dents who are show­ing greater lover and re­spect for the en­vi­ron­ment un­der the guid­ance of their prin­ci­pal and the en­cour­age­ment of the Ari­ma/San­ta Rosa Li­ons Club.”