2012 Green Lane Heroes

Albuera Primary School, TAS Students at this school have been incredibly busy! Not only have they campaigned for solar panels on their school roof but they are also keen on having a green tuckshop. They grow their own vegetables in the school garden for use in the canteen. Delicious! These students also run and participate in a Sustainable Science Fair where lots of amazing ideas are showcased.
Kathleen, NSW Kathleen faced her fears completing her Green Lane Diary last year. She started a worm farm despite not liking the squirmy creatures.  After learning all about the problems by reading the diary and watching documentaries, Kathleen wanted to teach others what they could do to help. She approached her neighbours and friends to give them suggestions for living a greener life.  Transforming rubbish into something amazing is another of her passions.  Who knew that a Pringles can makes a beautiful kaleidoscope! What can you upcycle?
Mossman State School, QLD It is all systems go at Mossman. Compost systems, worm farms, a veggie garden and water watch activities are all being run by students. Mossman students asked Greening Australia to teach them about the importance of trees and as a result, they planted 50 trees. These students didn't stop there. They also started a butterfly garden to create a habitat for insects and a bush tucker garden to help the community learn about indigenous use of local plants.
Kirsty, NSW Kirsty sent in her amazing diary jam packed with projects that she completed. It was incredibly inspiring to read her efforts over the term. She was certainly busy! Kirsty ran a beach clean up with her friends, she bought local produce and had a clean out of her clothes and books which she donated to charity. She didn't stop there. She carpooled with her friends and thought about before buying something new to see if she really needs it.
ECO OWL - St Mary's, Beaudesert QLD The year 6 students at St Mary's, Beaudesert, called their environmental group, the Eco Owl committee. Each week they chose a topic to work on and presented it on assembly to teach others how to take action. The Eco Owls posted a weekly newsletter tip and awarded prizes to students spotted doing the right thing. This group recycled an old pizza shop costume and transformed it into their Eco Owl mascot. Very handsome!
Sisterhood of the Travelling Bottle - Strathpine State School, QLD The year 6/7 girls at Strathpine State School in Queensland were concerned about the negative impact of plastic bottles. They discovered that for every six bottles used, only one makes it into the recycling bin. They each took turns with one plastic bottle to come up with a creative way to re-use it. They took photos each day of the different uses and gave a presentation to the school to raise awareness. Students from this school have also started the Water Watchers group, presenting weekly skits to promote water conservation. In their own time they visit junior classes and give talks on how to save water to the younger years. How inspiring!
Teigan, QLD This amazing year 5 student is in charge of composting at her school. She is leading a revolution trying to encourage recycling and teaching others. Her eco playground is a hit and she is always on the look out for injured wildlife, taking a sick pigeon to RSPCA for help

THE GREEN TEAM - St Mary's Primary, VIC

This green class believes in taking personal action. Each day, they spent time writing up their diary reflecting the positive changes they had each started. To encourage others in the school they started a raffle, awarding tickets to those students spotted picking up rubbish. Around the school you can find posters about pollution and other issues. The Green Team have helped to promote nude food days, helped with a revegetation project and created an information guide for parents on how to 'reuse' things. Can you write an information guide for grown-ups?

Georgia, QLD

Georgia was inspired by the diary and she has been a shining example to others leading the way on how to live a little more gently on Earth. She convinced her parents to install a water tank after presenting them with the facts. Then she got busy making bookmarks to raise money for kids in Uganda, giving her old clothes to charity and fixing her sisters broken toys to reuse them.  What example do you set for others?

2011 Green Lane Heroes

Ella, Queensland

Ella gives 100% and has led the way to help others learn how to recycle, spoken at school assemblies and created an art installation to raise awareness about deforestation. Ella is part of a 'lost property' group that connects kids to their belongings to prevent them from going into landfill. She's passionate about orangutans and is dreaming up her next project idea! Why not follow her lead?

St Mary's Primary School, Ipswich

Supported by their teacher Mr Minz, the Year 7 students worked throughout 2011 to reduce the size of their Ecological Footprints. To reduce their energy consumption within their school and at home, the students chose to open windows instead of turning on the air conditioning. They established a compost heap and produced an instructional DVD to teach others. They also created environmental flash cards for use by students in class and at home. What great change makers!

St Joseph's The Worker School, North Reservoir - Outstanding Class Achievement Award

The students of Year 2B from St Joseph's The Worker School in North Reservoir planned an Earth Hour event, with support from their teacher Mrs DeLeo. As a class they set a day and time and went about advertising the event. They made posters to put up in the local community, advertised in the local newspaper and informed other students during the whole school assembly. The response was amazing! On Wednesday 21st of September 2011 at 2:15pm, all the lights in their school were turned off for an entire hour! Through this project the class learnt a lot about energy and the need to use it wisely for a sustainable future.

Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School, Kenmore

The students at Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School have been working to monitor their school's energy use. Every break, students volunteer their time to act as Power Rangers by walking around the school and checking to see if lights, fans, air conditioners and other appliances are switched off. At the end of the week, their teachers Paul Mitchell and Louise Erbacher select the winning classes who have managed to save the most energy and these classes are presented with the Power Ranger of the Week Award.

Strathpine State School, Queensland

The Years 6 and 7 students from Strathpine State School and their teacher Helen have been INSANELY busy with a huge range of projects including recycling mobile phones, reducing energy consumption, making accessories from recycled materials and raising money to install water tanks and support their adopted baby gorilla, Georgie! But wait - there's more! They've also cleaned up their corner of Our Big Backyard, built a 'yarning circle' with the help of the indigenous students in their community, planted a bush tucker garden and created multi-media presentations to raise awareness about koalas in and around their school. Now that's impressive!

Anna Le, Cabramatta

Anna Le, a Year 3 student, showed her community how to live green and develop environmental awareness. Supported by her classmates and her teacher, Miss Todaro, Anna turned her Green Lane Diary into a work of art, describing the class achievements in making their school cleaner and greener. Now that's a great idea!

Tyler, Palm Beach

Tyler, a Year 6 student from Palm Beach State School in Queensland has come up with her own way of protecting our oceans. She arranged a campaign to start a 'plastic bottle free' Friday at her school to reduce the use of plastic bottles and raise awareness of the damage they can do to the oceans.

Sunshine Beach State School, Queensland

The Year 4 students from Sunshine Beach State School in Queensland worked with their teacher Carolyn to live the 6Rs. As part of their 'Litter Busters' investigation, the students chose a problem area within the school grounds and collected data about the amount of rubbish there. They created an action plan to rectify the problem and became caretakers for their chosen area. The students also designed an environmentally friendly sports shoe to reduce the number of sports shoes sitting in landfill and collected used running shoes for recycling at the specialist Nike recycling facility at Biggera Waters.

West End State School, Queensland

Over a 10 week period, the Year 5 students from West End State School and their teacher Susan Jones managed to collect an incredible amount of food scraps to be composted - 0.5 tonnes. That's the same weight as 3 camels!!! By composting their food scraps, the students stopped 0.5 tonnes of waste going to landfill! Top effort, guys!

St Pius X Primary School, Queensland

The Year 5 students of St Pius X Primary School in Queensland worked with their teacher Mrs Romer to investigate the benefits of ecofriendly and sustainable housing designs when rebuilding communities devastated by extreme weather events. They explored how products can be recycled and used glass and tin pieces to create new products from old. They also prepared 'Extreme Weather Lists' for 'Grandparents Day' for use in emergencies. Well done!

St Mary's Primary School, Williamstown

The Year 6 students of St Mary's Primary School in Williamstown, Victoria have been working with their teacher Mrs Sadler to teach their younger friends about environmental issues that are important to their local area. The students investigated problems such as endangered species and water salinity. Then they presented lessons to the Year 3 classes, teaching them how to make a difference for the environment.

Zaid, Campbelltown - Outstanding Individual Achievement Award

Zaid, a Year 5 student from Broughton Anglican School in Campbelltown NSW, created 'Island Dream' an environmentally friendly island to show people how we can live more sustainably by preserving our natural resources for future generations. Maybe this is not only a dream, as Australia is the world's biggest island... Great idea, Zaid!

2010 Green Lane Heroes

Brooke, Sunshine Coast

Brooke took up the diary challenge last year and she loved it! Not only did Brooke work hard to learn about the issues but the little things she did each day really helped and showed other people how to live green. Brooke's diary is a work of art! Her passion for the planet shone through in the creativity and time she took to write her diary.

Maleny State School, Queensland

Last year, 5A and Ms Anthony worked hard to help the environment. They planted Richmond Birdwing Butterfly Vines in the local National Park to help save the endangered species and they placed weekly 'Greeny Groovers' eco friendly tips into their school's weekly Familygram to give others idea for helping others. Is your class as green as 5A?

Pantea

Pantea is a girl on a mission. She shows others how to live a greener life by being a good example herself. Pantea has started a veggie patch at home and she uses green transport when she can like walking or using her bike. Not content with this, Pantea ran a petition in her school to develop a recycling system. Maybe you could try some of her ideas and campaign in your school for change.

St Mary's Primary School, Ipswich

These clever heroes in Year 6 and 7 started an enterprise growing and selling seedlings to eventually supply their tuckshop with fresh and locally sourced produce. They use their worm farm and compost to help grow their plants. They also want to improve the way waste is dealt with at their school and they have lobbied their local Mayor to help. Maybe you could start a green store too?

St Brendan's Catholic Primary School, Moorooka

The St Brendan's students learnt about the plight of their peers in Ghana and the lack of clean drinking water and latrines. They decided to do something to help. They held a movie lunch and raised much-needed finds and are planning future ventures. Funds raised went directly towards providing a water tank to deliver clean drinking water at the Dawu Methodist Primary and Junior High School in Ghana's east. Both the school and the community do not have access to safe water and sanitation. 589 kids attend the school and there are 2363 people who live in the village.

Chloe and Tilly - Phuket, Indonesia

Chloe is on a mission - she wants to help others learn about what they can do to help. Chloe has designed presentations, posters and newsletters to explain everything from local endangered species to extreme weather and how to be prepared. Being informed is really important, like Tilly in Phuket, who knew what it meant when she saw "the water bubbling right on the edge of the beach and foam sizzling like a frying pan". She warned her family and beachgoers and Maikhao beach was evacuated seconds before the tsunami arrived. Chloe and Tilly are helping to keep people safe!

Ocean Shores Public School, NSW

Mrs Lengyel's student have made their classroom 'green'. They have started a recycling project reusing all containers, paper and folders. They also visit local growers markets to learn about food miles and fresh produce which led them to introduce composting and a vegie garden at school. However that's not all, this class holds regular litter free lunches and has created posters with reminders for composting and recycling. They use the 6Rs every day, how about you?

Beaconsfield State School, Mackay

Ms Mifsud's clever class didn't delay to get stuck into several projects. Their school has a Future Forest plot where trees are planted to support wildlife and this class went and presented to youth conference to spread their ideas. They came up with a clever memory trick and taught their school - LOFOACCO (lights off, fans off, aircon, computers off) across school. Why don't you try it!

Nicholas, Runcorn State School

After learning about the plight of orangutans due to the the effect of the palm oil industry, Nicholas discovered his tuckshop was selling noodles containing the oil. His wonderful teacher asked him what he was going to do about it. So Nicholas began his campaign to revamp the tuckshop, investigating the products that are sold and which ones may be more sustainable. Nicholas' questions and initiative have resulted in the whole community making more conscious decisions about their purchases. Today the tuckshop, tomorrow the world - way to go, Nicholas!

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition

If one person at your school asks the Principal for something it may not happen but if every student asked then there is more pressure for change. The Australia Youth Climate Coalition is a group of young people who want to solve climate change. They campaign decision makers to stop pollution from damaging the environment. You can be involved and find out more at www.aycc.org.au.

Heatley and Manorville

Two school with two great projects - one year 5 class at Heatley State School in Townsville, Queensland, arranged an Earth Day for the school with walking to school and an hour without power! Manorvale State School in Victoria did something totally different. They created their own performance with dance and drama for the Wakkirii festival to show others how to protect the planet. What are you doing?