How To Help At School

Trees at school.....
There may be a place at school where you could plant some trees. To find out if there is space for doing some tree planting you will have to ask your principal.
It is important to explain to your principal why you would like to plant some more trees in your school. Some reasons would be: to make your school more beautiful, to have more trees to sit under in the summer and because trees help to care for the air we breath and they look after the soil under our feet.

There are some organisations that donate trees to schools. For information about these groups contact your regional council, they should be able to help you. You could also contact Forest and Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington. You could also try asking a local gardening shop if they have some trees they could donate, but you might have to buy them. To raise the money you could make some recycled paper and sell it - and by recycling paper you also help to look after the planet.

Do you recycle at your school?
Congratulations if you do - you are one step ahead of others. If you have friends who go to other schools which do not recycle, you can help them learn how to recycle at their school.

If you are not recycling at your school then now is a great time to start - and it's easy too.
Some things you can recycle at school are: paper, aluminium cans, plastic and glass.

If you are not sure where the recycled things need to go, or exactly what you can recycle, contact your local council (you can find their number in the telephone book). Also remember to ask your teachers for help as they might know about recycling already and they will be able to help you find the right information.

To recycle paper in your classroom you will need a box which is only for putting paper in. It will be a good idea to decorate the box so everyone knows that it is only for paper and not for other rubbish.

If your city or town does not have a paper recycling collection you will need to write LOTS of letters to your mayor (person who is the boss at your city or district council). Your letters will need to explain why you need a paper recycling collection: you need one because you have collected lots of paper that can be made into new things, which is a lot better than just throwing it away. Recycling helps to keep the world healthy by reducing the amount of rubbish people make, reducing the number of trees cut down for wood and paper, and electricity used to make cans and bottles.

Writing to politicians....
If you have already written a letter to a politician about an environmental or conservation issue that is fantastic! But it would be even better if you could get all the kids in your class to write letters too.

Imagine if every kid, in every classroom, in every school in New Zealand, wrote to the politicians in government reminding them about how important the natural world is. The politicians would not be able to forget about the native species and natural environment for ages! It would certainly make the politicians remember how important the natural world is and that people depend upon it for survival.

Read the page How to write to Politicians to understand why it is important to write to politicians and how it helps.