By Callum Ludwig
Communities around Australia donned gloves and tongs and packed up rubbish last week for Clean Up Australia Day, making our local streets and amenities tidier.
Gladysdale Primary School students went out to Ernest Lloyd Reserve during the week and their efforts were noted and appreciated by locals, with one resident even leaving Freddos and a card as a thank you.
Glaydsdale PS Principal Tara Jenner said the whole school is working on making a difference to the environment, to the community and to themselves and their school.
“We found 3.6kg of rubbish just on the side of the road and around the reserve and the children were thrilled to know they’ve fixed up that area,” she said.
“The gift was lovely, the students really enjoyed it and loved and appreciated that their efforts were noticed. Now they want to write a thank you to their thank you.”
Students at Gladysdale Primary School have also been improving their learning about rubbish and sustainability through recycling and composting programs at school, with chickens that are fed apple cores and fruit scraps, a vegetable garden and a recycling system for students to learn and reduce their footprint.
Ms Jenner said students were learning that if our local community areas are not clean, people won’t want to come and use them.
“We want everyone to enjoy our school and our area at Gladysdale, so we need to keep it tidy in a sensible manner,” she said.
“We didn’t know exactly how much rubbish we would find but we tried to have a guess, some thought that we wouldn’t find any and some thought that we’d find a lot more than what we did.”
