Transforming rubbish into resources

Gifts to the UWCSEA Annual Fund have funded the establishment of a Creative Reuse Centre on East Campus, which has been designed to promote the notion that waste materials can be resources.

Ben Morley , Head of Infants writes:

The Creative Reuse Centre is located in the new-look Infant Indoor Playground. The hope is that it will promote the notion that waste materials can be resources. The idea is to collect, display and distribute alternative and reclaimed materials obtained from the community, with the aim to reinvent their use and meaning, promoting creativity and collaborative play.

The idea was inspired by Remida, a cultural project associated with the principality of Reggio Emilia in Italy. The ongoing focus of the project being to represent a new, optimistic and proactive way of approaching environmentalism and building change through giving value to reject materials, imperfect products and otherwise worthless objects, to foster new opportunities for communication and creativity.

The Creative Reuse Centre will, hopefully, become a genuine community initiative at UWC East, with parents and older students involved. The Grade 4/5 LEAP Service group has already been charged with stocking, promoting and organising the centre as it becomes established.

At the same time, we are also continuing our exploration of a Pop Up Playground area in the Infant Indoor Playground. This is a designated area of the playground stocked with loose parts (such as cardboard boxes, tyres, fabric, pipes, wooden offcuts etc.), collected from the local community. Again, the idea is to promote creative, imaginative and collaborative play using non-commercial, open-ended resources.

Both of these initiatives are in line with the vision of fostering a responsibility towards sustainability with our youngest learners at UWC East and will, hopefully, encourage them to develop a respect for objects, the environment and each other. 

The Journey of a Tree...

From a seedling nurtured to a tree in our Rainforest Restoration Project rooftop tree nursery, this Serculia foetida (Java Olive) tree species, after three years, has finally found a permanent home into the ground in front of Tampines House. The preparations started weeks ago...

Our 'farewell' tree impression as the tree is about to start its travels from the B-Block 6th floor tree nursery, into the elevator...

...down the ramps, over the speed bumps, and finally on the site, in front of Tampines House...

The 'before and after' photos of the tree's new home...

 

Kimheang delivery her speech and the story of our tree at the opening ceremony of the Round Square Conference

Planting our Serculia foetida in its new permanent home - where it will get plenty of attention from our boarders!

Getting our hands dirty!

Gaetano, Kevin, Paula, Goya, Ajna, Mariel, Gaby together with BEST and Rainforest Restoration Project, planting 50 trees with donor Kirtida Makani, in collaboration with other international schools for Singapore's 50th Anniversary.

High School Urban Gardening (by Shuyan Jin and Yoojin Park)

Photo taken at the 6th floor rooftop garden (between blocks C and D)

Mixing soil was one of the most important stages in gardening. Most of the nutrients for the plants are provided by the soil. We added layers of perlite, coconut husk and compost and secured the geotextile that contained it by tape.

HS Urban Gardening students mixing soil components in planter

Plants on Giant Rooftop

Watering was also important since it was essential for survival of plants. We highly appreciated the staff in our school who helped us to water the plants during holidays.

We also worked in a garden on the rooftop of the Giant, which we often visited by bus. The employees of Giant were happy to receive help and advice from us. In the Giant garden, we planted some tomatoes, mint and basil etc as we did at the garden in school.

Plants on Giant Rooftop

Plants on Giant Rooftop 

Squash on 6th floor rooftop garden

In addition, we kept up with growing various different kinds of plants in the rooftop garden at school. Many of us researched about plants that were suitable for the weather in Singapore, and we introduced some new species in the garden. The rooftop garden at school was large and we had around 5 different beds for planting . We were impressed that most of them grew well.

Ladyfinger

Chili

A beautiful bouquet from the MS garden

We sometimes worked with students from the middle school gardens. For example, we took cuttings of some plants (e.g. citronella) that were growing well and transferred them to the rooftop garden.

The sales at our booth at the family festival was a huge success. We sold seeds, seedlings and products such as mint and pumpkins. We made over 500 dollars as a result.

However, we met some challenges in gardening as well. For example, there were a lot of aphids consuming the leaves of the plants themselves. This caused most of our chili plants to die. We also had to cut off some dead leaves that were mottled in order to keep the plants healthy.

Tomatoes on 6th floor rooftop garden

Overall, it was a valuable and rewarding experience that taught us a lot of skills (e.g. teamwork and communication skills). We also made some friends during this time which made all the hard work less burdensome. We want to thank every single team members, teachers and staff at school and giant who helped us to enrich this experience and enable us to achieve the goal of creating a greener environment and a closer community.

Grade Five take a tour around the Rainforest Restoration nursery

Grade Five has been investigating the biodiversity of rainforests this term. The students were keen to learn how we urban dwellers can take action to protect and nurture the rainforest species which are still found in the region.
What better place to inquire, than on our own roof with some of the students who are running the Rainforest Restoration project. The Grade Five students took a tour and were able to find out how the project will help to ensure the longevity of endangered native tree species.

The Grade Five students noticed the fact that, although the seedlings were growing in pots on the roof, the Grade Eleven and Twelve students had made sure the area had similarities to the rainforest (Grade Five visited the rainforest of Taman Negara this term, so they were experts!!). They noticed that care had been taken with the soil, watering system and the shade cloth to make the environment feel very similar to that of the rainforest.  A great learning experience!

Kath

This just in from the PS Urban Gardeners:

There have been some exciting developments in the Primary School garden this term. The team of Grade 2 to Grade 5 gardeners (with a little help from their friends) have transformed the look and productivity of their small garden which is located close to the Exam Hall and the bus office.

2012 - We’ve come a long way from our original garden on East campus, but we knew we could do even better!

First the students cleared the plants from the old beds.  We had been growing marigolds, ginger and eggplants, but for the most part the soil in the beds had been washed away by the heavy rain which is a regular occurrence in tropical Singapore.  We knew that we needed a better system.  

We borrowed a few old bricks from Dover campus. And with the help of the Middle School Urban Gardeners and Shahril from Facilities (who came into school on his day off!) we built four new beds which could withstand the harsh climate of Singapore.

Next, we worked with Mr Erickson to mix the original soil with new soil and coconut husk. Andrew and Shaurya write: “Some of us had never made a bed. Mr Erickson helped Shaurya, Anni and Isabelle making the beds. It was a really fun process as we had to mix, add and mash.  It is very tiring as there are many layers. By the end of it, all of us were very tired, but in the end you do feel very happy.”

Meanwhile, other members of the gardening team were planting seeds in our seed tubes (raised up high to avoid attack from snails and ants) so that we would have seedlings ready to plant in our new beds.

Our final step was to plant out our precious seedlings into our brand new beds.  The plants look right at home and are growing well. We’re looking forward to our next harvest.

Shaurya and Andrew write:

“Gardening club is a very fun club that involves people who know gardening and some who don’t. I had no experience in gardening but in a few weeks I really started to feel like I was helping out.  Many people start to feel sad as they leave this amazing club. This is a club that I would probably choose every term. We asked Cesca (Grade 3) what she liked the best about gardening and she replied, ‘We all work as a team and nothing gets in our way. If there’s a problem like there’s ants biting us and snails are eating our plants, we work as a group to sort it.’ Many other people like planting and harvesting. We like Cesca's answer, "We all work as a team and nothing gets in our way!"  When we interviewed the Primary gardening team, all of the answers were linked to one thing, WE ALL LOVE GARDENING!!!!”

-Kath

6th Floor Green Roof

If you haven't been on the 6th floor of Block D lately (or ever!), you should make the climb and have a look.  The rooftop space there is being transformed from an empty expanse of concrete to a multi-purpose green space for use by the whole UWCSEA East community.  

The original rooftop space 

The first real changes were brought about by the Rainforest Restoration Project (Mireille Couture, MiC).  Their goal is to propagate seedlings of endangered trees and shrubs endemic to the region and to find permanent planting sites for them around Singapore.  Through funding made possible by a generous donor, they have already built a shade house that protects the seedlings from direct sunlight while also catching rainwater for irrigation.  Students work here propagating and tending seedlings on Thursdays after school.  

Rainforest Restoration Project shade house

Last year, the High School Urban Gardeners (Andy Ware, AWa) began planning a rooftop garden for this space.  They spent a lot of time researching the design and trialing methods on the UWC-sponsored Dairy Farm rooftop garden located on the roof of the Giant superstore next to Ikea.  They are in the process of assembling and preparing large planter beds for this space with the goal of growing organic herbs and veggies and creating a green patch that can accessed by teachers and students.  They are on the rooftop on Mondays after school. 

HS Urban Gardeners assembling the steel planters

Students installing geotextile 

The first completed planter box

Adjacent to the Rainforest Restoration seedling nursery is a new propagation chamber where other gardening services like the Primary School Urban Gardeners (Kath Lane, KtL), the Middle School Urban Gardeners (Adam Erickson, AEr and Alex Prudhomme, APr), the Campus Improvement Team Herb Gardeners (Lay Keng and Dena Lim), science technicians, the facilities teams and even Global Concerns like the Island Foundation (Marianne Young-MacDonald, MYM and Martin Spreckley, MSy) will propagate seedlings for their various needs.  It makes use of repurposed broken classroom tables and a misting system that keeps germinating seedlings moist even on hot, dry days.  

New propagation chamber

In addition, last year's graduating class gift sponsored a student lounge for the 6th floor rooftop.  This space was installed by the facilities team in mid-September.  And speaking of the facilities team, I should mention the hours of work that Simon, Dena, Sarwani, Shahril, Lay Keng and their crews have put into helping to coordinate these projects.

Student lounge area

The benefits of rooftop gardens are well documented. In addition to the individual goals of each of the organizations mentioned above, we hope that our school community will benefit from this rooftop garden in the following ways:  1) Food security: fresh herbs and veggies!  2) Reduced building cooling costs—plants cool the surface they grow on  3)  An outdoor learning space for classes and the community 4) Increased biodiversity on campus as other species are drawn to the green space 5)  General well-being as our community is able to interact with nature.  The goal is to replicate this model across other rooftops and concrete scapes on campus including the boarding house, the junior school, tent plaza and the 6th floor art terrace.  

So go up and have a look. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment, but that’s what change looks like!  If you'd like more information on this process or want to contribute, you can contact me or any of the staff involved. 

Adam