Our Eco Ambassadors are the driving force behind the Buckshaw Primary Eco team.  The team is made up of volunteers from across KS2, who are passionate about our planet and are eager to make a difference in our school and the local community. They oversee our plans and projects and are responsible for representing and leading
everyone else in our school community – we all have a part to play in caring for our planet!

Projects and Meetings
At our fortnightly meetings, our ambassadors discuss the project they want to prioritise. The team initially completed an Environmental Review, gathering information and assessing the school's performance in 10 key areas. These included:

• Energy - to reduce the amount of energy used and to reduce our carbon footprint.
• Water - to explore the problems of a ‘water crisis’ and other issues surrounding water supply.
• Marine - to examine how we help to keep oceans and rivers clean and safe.
• Biodiversity - to try to increase the variety and population of species in our school grounds.
• School Grounds - to ensure that the school grounds are used effectively and kept clean.
• Healthy Living - to ensure pupils know what a ‘healthy lifestyle’ is.
• Transport - to encourage eco-friendly transport.
• Litter - to reduce the amount of litter on site.
• Waste - to reduce/monitor the amount of waste produced at school.
• Global Citizenship - to teach skills, values, attitudes and knowledge to allow pupils to participate in a truly global society.

Following the review, the eco ambassadors have been able to plan projects to tackle the issues that affect our school. So far, they have worked on the following:

Reducing school power consumption by switching off lights, computers, and other electrical items when not in use. Posters designed by an Eco Ambassador are displayed throughout the school.

• Daily litter picking on school premises.
• Encouraging paper recycling with extra recycling bins.
• Earth Day Assembly to highlight the environmental issues around our planet as the result of producing and using plastic.
• KS2 Recycling workshops.
• Looking at how we can reduce our plastic use in school, including recycling our printer cartridges and encouraging our families to do the same with the ‘Empties Please’ recycling program. If you would like to donate your used ink/toner cartridges, please place them in the designated bin inside the school entrance area. A list of accepted cartridges can be found on the Empties website. 
• Working towards the Plastic Clever school’s accreditation.

Autumn Term
As well as continuing the projects we started in the last academic year, the team is focusing this term on ‘Paper and the Recycling Process’.