Monday 18 June 2018

The roof garden project this school year..





October 2017

3 IB students led sessions with a group of 2ºESO including a presentation about why gardens are needed in cities, a planning session to decide what to plant, and two gardening sessions where they cleared out the old summer veg and planted radish, lettuce and spinach seeds. We planted seeds straight in the ground as the automatic watering system would guarantee regular watering!

November 2017

We watched the seeds grow and applied a sawdust mulch to trap water in the soil and stop evaporation. Temperatures were surprisingly warm in November and there was little rain.

January 2018

We organised an Eco-committee meeting and had the idea for Gardening Club so that pupils could come to the roof garden at break-time on Wednesdays and work in the garden with Miss Gurney.

We learnt about an ecological gardening technique called "Tree Guilds" where you plant support species around the trees. The support plants are chosen so they add nitrogen to the soil and provide shade cover to the bare soil around the trees. Aromatic plants around the trees will attract insects that may be predators to any pests that could damage the trees. We ordered plants that could be used for guilds from Escoles + Sostenibles.





February 2018


We harvested radishes from the roof and took them to the kitchen where the chefs made them into a salad for teachers.

March 2018

The pupils organised a special type of cake sale where students across the school were encouraged to collect seeds from organic fruit and veg, dry them, label them and bring them to school. For each packet of seeds that students brought we gave them a piece of cake.

Here are all the seeds we collected :


At the seed sale we left a box for any students and parents to take home veg we harvested from the roof: radishes, lettuce and spinach.

April 2018

Students spent time in the roof garden observing, planting seeds and planting the support plants around the trees, and eating some peas from the primary school garden!






We noticed that two pea plants have started growing under this tree, which is where we left our pea pods to be taken away for compost!! So we gave them mulch (sawdust cover) to help them survive and thrive in the sun. The other plants under the tree are attract insects - thyme and chamomile.

Here is a report from some of our gardeners :

In environmental enrichment we do a variety of things to help our environment plant a variety of different seeds like: kiwi, chia seeds, avocado, tomatoes and apples. Last week a group of us went up and watered and cared for the different plants. We harvested lettuce that was already fine to eat and plucked out plants that were harming other plants. We also cut of the tops of the spinach so they could grow healthier and stronger. Another of our tasks is to make sure all the plants have water in the hot climate of Barcelona. 

Another activity we do to disconnect from our stressed minds and the internet is listen to our environment , our surroundings, so we can notice things that we never pay attention to in our daily life.

Every week, we observe how our plants are growing and we make sure they keep on doing it. We have a very pleasant time up on the roof that relaxes us all and helps us connect with nature.


May 2018
Seed collection project

The radish plants from October are now a huge mass of seed pods









We were amazed that what looks like loads of huge plants is actually just three radishes. Each huge plant comes from just one tiny seed, and we did some calculations to see how many seeds each plant produced :
approx 8 seeds per pod, approx 10 pods per stem, we counted 30 stems and the guessed that there were 5 times this many stems on the whole three plants.

TOTAL = 12,000 seeds!! from the original 3 seeds we planted.

Nature follows a model of abundance!



The seeds from the brown pods are ready to collect. The seeds from the green pods need more time to mature.

Seed planting project 

Here is what we planted and our results.:




We are amazed that two tiny apple trees started growing. Sadly we don't have a picture and they have gone - probably eaten by birds.

We learnt some more about the apples, however, and we suspect that because the apples were not organic (people collected them from the school dining room to bring to get their cake!) the trees would probably not have produce fruit.

Interesting facts about apples :


  • Farmers add hormones to the fruit so that the seeds don't grow into fruit producing trees. They do not want people to be able to "copy" their variety of apple.
  • The apple trees that are not organic have 15 chemical treatments which may damage the seeds
  • The apples have two more chemical treatments before they arrive to the shops.

The most successful project is from the tomato seeds - we looked after the seeds and now they are growing really well and will soon produce fruit!








Tuesday 13 June 2017

Projects Term 3 (Summer 2017)

No waste day 

Daniella Gallardo, Miguel Caireta, Angel Rodriguez, Bruno Pont, (2º ESO Environmental Club)

May/June 2017





This is Miguel, Daniela, Bruno and Angel. This is the information for the No Waste Day:

We looked at the results for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and saw that on what we wasted on Wednesay was about 200-300 kW less than normally. Here are the numbers:
Monday: 1357kW
Tuesday: 1521kW
Wednesday: 1157kW

This a reduction in electricity use of 20%!!

After this we did an average between the numbers of Monday and Tuesday and used this to do an average on what we use every month in school. Then we did the same with the amount of energy we used on Wednesday. We concluded that on a normal month we waste 8576.9 kW more than in a month where we would have all no waste days. 

A month with all No Waste Days would waste: 35192.083kW
A normal month would waste: 43769.583kW

What next???




Eco-committee Meeting  

Luca Montrucchio, Jordi Fabregat  (1º ESO Environmental Club)

May/June 2017

Luca and Jordi took a big role in organising the Eco-committee meeting held in the Auditorium on the 1st June 2017.  All the photos are included in the Oak House School newsletter from Friday 16th June. Luca and Jordi showed two videos and spoke to everyone present about environmental issues, then we went to the roof garden to visit it and plant seeds to grow plants that will help improve the soil quality to be able to grow vegetables after summer. On top of the seeds we left some wood shavings to act as a "mulch" to stop the soil drying out too quickly and to keep it cooler.






Environmental Awareness Leaflet 


Marina Bardina, Valéria Matas  (1º ESO Environmental Club)

May/June 2017






Environmental Awareness Poster 

Caterina Blengino,  Claudia Hernández, Gabriela Miarnau, Segi Orobitg, Lorenzo Sans (1º ESO Environmental Club)

May/June 2017




The poster and leaflets will be on display next term!

The Roof Garden 
Alex Muñoz  (1º ESO Environmental Club)
May/June 2017

Alex helped with the roof garden, and researched what plants would be the ideal companions to the trees we have planted on the roof. The companion plants will form what we call a "guild" of species which work together to support each other in a mini-ecosystem and we will plant them very soon!


Thursday 2 March 2017

Current Projects Term 2

Gardening in Early Years 

Ricard Bladé, Edgar Suarez, Bernat Camps (1º ESO Environmental Club)
March 2017

Our Environmental project will consist in various things:

We are helping nursery children them with their project. All the things that we will plant we'll do them with nursery children.

-We will plant onions, when they are ready to take from underground we will wash them and take
them to the Oak House's kitchen.

-We will also do the same with lettuce.

Here are the lettuces we planted:


Scrap Paper Boxes in ESO Building

Maia Sibley Swain and Victoria Balcells (2º ESO Enviornmental Club)
March 2017 - (unfinished)

Our project is going to consist in placing scrap paper "baskets" in the classrooms around the school (secondary and maybe primary), so that people don't waste paper when it could be reused. Sometimes people need scrap paper to quickly do something, but with the lack of scrap paper, we have to use normal, unused paper which we will then throw away. So, we thought that adding these bins would help the environment, not only for a short period of time, but for a longer time. 

Mobile Phone Collection

Isabel Gansäur, helped by María Vendrell and Marta Vázquez (1º ESO Environmental Club)
March 2017 - (unfinished)

I want to do the Mobile phone collection because I want to prevent the animal extinction as I am a member of the institute Jane Goodall I know it could really help. I will also talk to Helen for advice as she was one of the ones organizing it last year.

The campaign will run from now until June and we will put bins in the ESO building where people can leave the phones.

Link to see what is happening in the world of wild life:

Battery Recycling - Apilo Rocket!

Ivan Rodríguez, helped by María Málaga, Sara Horspool, Marta Vasquez, María Vendrell (1º ESO Environmental Club)

March 2017 - June 2017

Oak House School were given a space rocket with a bin inside, when you build it, there's a hole in the rocket where you are able to throwh batteries inside. There are also small boxes with information and with a hole, for throwing small batteries inside. We gave out the boxes to all the classes of Secondary, Bachillerato/IB and Primary.


before



after!



Let's save the grass!

Sara Horspool (1º ESO Environmental Project)

March 2017

Sara made a sign to try and encourage Bachillerato and IB students to walk on the path and not step on the grass - which is killing it and leaving an ugly patch of dirt instead of green grass!

Meatless Mondays

Patricia Darnell, Inés Lammers, Laura Contreras,  (4ºESO Eco Committee)

March 2017 - June 2017

These 4º ESO students have given up their free time to start promoting the Meatless Mondays campaign to raise awareness about the environmental impact of meat consumption. They put up poseters around the school to raise awareness and prepared a power point for the Eco-committee meeting on 1st June explaining why this project exists and suggesting that as well as observing Meatless Mondays at school (Thanks to collaboration by the school administration and kitchen departments) we could all avoid meat in our other meals on Monday's as well!

Here is a video clip where Leonardo DiCaprio explains the motives behind this campaign!


Friday 25 November 2016

Current Projects Term 1

Aromatic plants and mint tea

Sara Bellmunt, Aina Planas, Georgia Martinez (1º ESO)
Oct 2016 - ?

"We are Georgia, Aina and Sara. As you many know we are workingon a project that consists of planting aromatic plants. We are doing this poroject because we want to make our school a better place for nature and plants, we have already filled up 3 flower pots and we want to fill them all, around the school. We will continue our project although we will not be in Environmental EP because the term is finishing.

We want to make tea out of the aromatic plants and we will try to sell it on Family Day.

Photographing the Seasons

Sara Bellmunt  (1º ESO)
Oct 2016 - June 2017

I am Sara Bellmunt, I've been working on a project that consists of taking pictures at the same place (the mountain) every day. I have been taking the pictures for 20 days now and I have seen the changes on one of the trees. It is very important to take the picture at the same solar time because finally when I make the video with all of the pictures I have taken I want it to have the same light.
The term is finishing and I will be in another enrichment project but I will still continue taking the pictures until the end of the year and then make the video.
I have done this project to show how the world changes during a year, showing the different seasons and develop out love of nature.

Teaching Year 2 and 3 about Environmental Issues

Alexandra Thackray, María Waters, Anabel Santa María, Martina Huguet, Carla Castelltort, Martina Varela, Paula Nadal, Alex Mayol, Katia Mir (1º ESO)
Oct 2016 - November 2016

These students worked in groups to prepare and teach a 45 minute lesson to Primary pupils. They wanted to teach the importance of soil, the beauty of plants, and give an interesting practical activity to generate enthusiasm about environmental issues.They worked hard to prepare presentations, gather materials and plan the activity and today 24th November they gave the classes. All the pupils involved planted a seed, and were given the chance to ask questions about how plants grow, soil and the importance of water. Thanks to Andy, James and Victoria who supported us and let us into the classes!

"I loved the experience! I felt like a real teacher and the children were so mature and responsible. I would love to do this 1000 times more"

"As we started the activity, the kids told me that they loved plants and wanted to know more about it. I had loads of fun with them explaining them and showing them but I had to have a lot of patience with some of them, I still don't know how teachers can have so much patience"

"We got different materials and put them in the children's hand, they were blindfolded and they had to guess what it was and if it was environmentally friendly or not. At the start they were scared about what we were going to put in their hands, but they ended up enjoying it very much. We used sand, soil, yogurt pots and cardboard boxes. They found the soil disgusting at the start but we related it to food and then they thought it was amazing!!!"

"It was a great experience with year 2 yellow today. We, Alexandra, Anabel and I, taught them about the recycling bins and about our world. We then split them into to groups and did a few activities with them. The first activity was based on making the children plant lentil seeds, in recycled yogurt pots, and water them. They really liked the activity. Some of there questions were: Why aren't they growing yet? Were do we leave them? Is the activity finished, we don't want it to finish?"



"They learned how to grow a plant and we learned how to show small kids to grow, so next time we can do it better. We did some activities so they could learn and have fun at the same time, first we did our presentation and after we added the soil into their yogurt pots. After that they had to write in their whiteboard what was soil for them, some of them said it smelled bad or good and if it was soft or rough. Following the soil activity we left some cress seeds in each table and they had to count 6 seeds and add them to their pots"

How much aluminium foil do we throw away at school?

Luis Palau, Paco Coll (1ºESO)
Sept 2016 - November 2016

From the dayThursday17 of November to the day Thursday 24 of November we put some blue bins at the side of some of the bins to gather aluminum. We collected all the foil. We will recycle the foil, but actually we wanted to measure how much was thrown away each day so we can aim to REDUCE it by then end of the year.

We weighed it, and in just these days we collected 1.2kg of thrown away foil.

Bad part : Because it rained, the signs that told that our bins were to recollect aluminum went of and the people didn't know what to PUT, so I think there should have been more aluminum. Also the people through not only aluminum but plastic and other things.