Year 4 pupils from Jameah Girls Academy tell us how they wanted to help their local environment by raising awareness of the problem of litter.
We decided to choose the issue of littering because we did a local habitat survey in our science class and we saw how much of a bad impact littering was having on our local environment. Further research found out that the local council spends lots of its money on litter picking – money that they could spend in other places if people just stopped littering! We felt it was a big issue that we could have a big impact on!
So we set out on a litter pick in our local area. We used gloves and litter pickers to stay safe and we picked in areas that our teacher had said was safe. In some locations we picked up 10kg of litter! Sometimes more than we could carry! Overall we picked up 28kg of litter!
We decided that we wanted to do something to try to fix the issue going forwards. So we wrote to our member of parliament and our local councillors asking them to put more bins in so that people would stop littering. The local councillors wrote back saying they would certainly look into the issue which is really exciting to see that the issue might improve in the future because of us.
‘We felt optimistic that our letters would make a positive difference in reducing the amount of litter’ – Year 4 pupil
We really felt like we made a difference because we improved the look of the local area which meant residents felt more proud of living there. People were also spending more time in the communal areas as they could play in litter-free areas now. We are also really proud to say that our school won the Eco-Schools bronze and silver awards!
‘Overall, this challenge made us realise that even children can make a positive contribution to society. We were inspired by Malala Yousafzai and Great Thunberg. It made us feel more responsible in taking care of our environment and we believe we have made a difference.’ – Year 4 pupil
Sign up for the Make a Difference Challenge.