During Sustainability Week (Term 3, Week 2), the Sustainability Council ran a range of activities to get students involved and to highlight practical ways we can be more sustainable at school.

On Monday, we had a drive-through event at the school entrance with our school mascot Margot and music greeting people as they arrived. Three Year 12 students, Beatrix Sharpe, Alice Wellington and Rose Finlayson wore our Sustainability Council costumes (shark, turtle and seal), which made the morning really fun and helped draw attention to Sustainability Week.

On Tuesday at lunchtime, council members went around the school running an Eco Quiz. Juniors were especially keen to take part, and we had a high level of participation overall. The questions focused on general sustainability knowledge, and were designed both to test what students already knew and to share new information about everyday sustainable choices.

On Wednesday, we promoted waste-free lunches. Council members checked lunchboxes and awarded Sustainability House points to students who had zero-waste lunches. Cochrane ended up being the winning house, showing really strong engagement with low-waste practices.

On Thursday, we held a lunchtime screening of Wall-E in the hall. Students brought their lunches, and we provided popcorn and lollies. Wall-E was chosen because its themes around overconsumption, waste and environmental responsibility link closely to the messages we wanted to share during Sustainability Week.

On Friday, we ran “Dio Thrifts” in the chapel courtyard, selling second-hand clothes donated by students across the first two weeks of the term, in collaboration with the Ethics Council. The money raised is going to Everlasting, a New Zealand not-for-profit clothing charity that transforms fashion waste into support for women facing challenging circumstances. Everlasting focuses on rehoming good-quality pre-loved clothing and using the proceeds to provide clothing kits and other support for women in need.

During Sustainability Week, another activity run by the Sustainability Council was the Trash to Treasure initiative together with the Arts Council.

The Arts and the Sustainability Councils collected recycled “trash,” such as plastic and cardboard, and then gave them to the  Year 7-10 tutor classes. Each of these tutor classes were given five pieces of recycled materials and we challenged the classes to convert them into something new and meaningful. The theme was “From Less”, encouraging students to think creatively about how something that would normally be discarded could be given a new purpose. The competition ran throughout the week, with tutor groups able to work together and get creative with their recycled materials.

The winning group received donuts and sustainability house points. It was a fun way to get younger students involved in Sustainability Week while encouraging creativity, collaboration, and thinking differently about waste. 

Overall, students were highly engaged throughout the week, and the combination of quizzes, dress-ups, movie watching and second-hand clothing sales helped make sustainability feel accessible and relevant to everyday school life.