St Brigid's School

Enviroschool
 

St Brigid's is an Enviroschool.
'Enviroschools' is a national 'education for sustainable future' programme that "...involves students in taking action to create more peaceful, healthy and sustainable environment."  Becoming an Enviroschool involves a tree-stage process, with schools working towards a Bronze, Silver or Green-Gold award in recognition of their efforts towards becoming more sustainable.
Action projects undertaken by Enviroschools have both environmental and educational outcomes that benefit the school and the wider community.
Being an Enviroschool and a Catholic School go hand in hand.  We encourage the children to show care and respect for the environment and for others.  Our core values of Respect, Responsibility, Self-Motivation and Co-operation come to the for in our environmental work.
For us, being an Enviroschool means that we are all learning to take care of the environment for today and our future.
Recycling / Zero Waste
Through zero waste students are encouraged to take a closer look at their waste and to challenge the whole concept of waste.  Students are responsible for assessing the school's waste and planning how they can take positive steps to reduce it.
We try to have as little as possible entering the waste system.  We compost food scraps and then use this to feed our Edible Garden and Biodome.  We wash plastic containers for re-use or to be collected in the yellow lidded wheelie bins provided by the Dunedin City Council.  Each class is responsible for its own paper recycling as well as taking responsibility for the care of different areas
Bronze Award
We are proud to have a Bronze Enviroschool Award. We are now working towards a Silver Enviroschool Award.
Click here to view our Bronze Enviroschool Award.
Care Code
We all worked together to create a school Care Code.
Click here to view our school Care Code.
Biodome and Edible Gardens
We have vegetable gardens that are planted by children enthusiastic about growing things.  The children are responsible for maintaining the gardens and deciding what to plant in them.  Once harvested, the children prepare meals using the produce.  They sell lunches to generate funds for the garden and well as raising money for worthy causes such as the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal.
We are lucky enough to have a Biodome at St Brigid's.  This is a state of the art glass house with a unique design.  It self regulates its temperature, waters itself using condensation and provides the ideal environment for raising seeds and growing tomatoes, capsicum and courgettes among other things