Welcome To Our Global Gang Page! 

Global Gang is an after school club for girls and boys in Year 5 and 6 who care about making St Matthew's a eco-friendly school. We have done lots of different activities this year.  Read on to find out more about what we have done and are planning... Would YOU like to join Global Gang?

Be a climate activist even at home!

Click on the link below to go to Young Climate Warriors - every week there is a new challenge which you can take part in at home.  From baking palm oil free biscuits to drying the washing on the line, there is so much climate activism you can do at home!

COP 28 – Get creative for Climate Justice

by Laurie Phillips and Lillian Angosom

This year global Gang presented an assembly about cop 28 and how some countries such as the USA  pollute while others such as Tuvalu and Kenya suffer with droughts and floods.  Every child in school created a piece of artwork representing the impacts of climate change.  Family and friends came in to school to view the artwork.  We were also lucky enough to be visited by our local MP, Fabian Hamilton.  Some of the artwork was taken to the Houses of Parliament and to Dubai.  

Could we become a Zero carbon school…?

by Lucy Sheen, Nifemi Adeoye, Cerys Farquhar Summer 2023

Year 5 have been doing a zero carbon school challenge. Each lesson they are taking a new step to make St. Matthews a carbon free school. Last term they looked at countries that are suffering the most from climate change, also they made posters to inform the rest of the school about the climate crisis.  This term, Year 5 calculated the school’s carbon footprint. We calculated travel, food, purchasing and energy use in school and found that our total carbon footprint for the year is ... 338 Tonnes of CO2!!!  For details see the document below.

Year 5 have worked in groups to come up with ideas and solutions that can help to make the school closer to zero carbon next year.  One group has looked at how we can cut down on electricity usage.  Another group has had the idea of a switch off day.  Another group wants to organise a swap shop to cut down on the need to buy new things. 

Would you like to be a class Eco Warrior next year?!

In our school we have Eco Warriors who help all classes to be more environmentally friendly. To be an Eco Warrior they had to write a speech. Then they got voted by the class. We have two Eco Warriors in each class. Some of the people in the Global Gang are also Eco Warriors. Here are some of the actions that the Eco Warriors are taking:-

• Introducing Young Climate Warriors weekly challenge to their class 
• Checking what we can reduce, reuse or recycle in our classrooms
• Making sure that we turn off our lights and appliances to save energy

​​​​​​​Parisa Zaidi

Finger-licking food: Our school growing project

By Cerys & Nifemi

We, Global Gang, organised a school project where parents and organisations have helped to support it by giving us help and wood for building our vegetable  beds. 

Since then, we have grown potatoes, lettuces, peas, garlic, strawberries and lots of other things. We also have an apple tree growing by the beds. Global Gang dug up the potatoes, Year 3 picked the apples.

Palm oil: Did you know?

Palm  oil is  an edible vegetable oil which is derived  from the  mesocarb fruit of the palm tree. Did you know that when we plant palm plantations to extract palm oil, we are often cutting down  other trees from the rainforest? The palm oil industry has been destroying the world's forests, wildlife and climate. Palm oil is mostly grown in Indonesia and Malaysia, two tropical countries with large areas of rainforest home to tigers, orangutans and other species that are found nowhere else on earth. The scientific name for palm oil is Elaeis Quinensis. Two types of oil can be produced by squeezing the fleshy fruit, and palm kernel oil which comes from crushing the kernel, or the stone in the middle of the fruit. Oil palm trees are native to Africa but were brought to South-East Asia just over 100 years ago as an ornamental tree crop. Now, Indonesia and Malaysia make up over 85% of global supply but there are 42 other countries that also produce palm oil.

What products is Palm Oil in?

Palm oil is in nearly everything – it’s in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It’s also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world (not in the UK though!). 

Animals like this Orangutan live in the Amazon rainforest .

Using palm oil means that they lose their  home.  This is tragic.

Watch out there are frauds

People have learnt about the situation. So companies got worried . They started calling palm oil different things . We think this is fraud! Can you find any fraud items in your house ? Here is a link that shows you 200 names for palm oil.

https://www.youngclimatewarriors.org/youngclimatewarriorweeklychallenges 

Palm oil is actually very efficient compared to many other vegetable oils, so the answer isn’t to stop buying products with palm oil.  It’s to look out for sustainably grown palm oil.  If you see this logo, you know that the palm oil in your product hasn’t led to habitat loss for species like the orangutan.

by Parisa Zaidi and Eva-Tate Onuorah

PS The information in the Palm Oil article has come from the Young Climate Warriors website.  www.youngclimatewarriors.org.uk There is a new challenge on there each week to do something different to help the climate or find out more about nature.  We would love it if you could support your child by signing up on the website for the Weekly Challenge and doing it at home - then they can tell their classmates what they have done on a Friday afternoon at school.

Eco-schools Green Flag Award

St. Matthew's already has the Bronze and Silver Eco-schools awards but Global Gang thinks we could go for the Green Flag Award.  What do you think?  If we go for it, we are going to need everyone's help.

Click here to find out more. 

http://eco-schools.org.uk/