Warwick Senior High School students Jenny Ngo, Ella Ferguson, Hannah Hyunh, Lisa Nguyen and Althea Delos Reyes.
Camera IconWarwick Senior High School students Jenny Ngo, Ella Ferguson, Hannah Hyunh, Lisa Nguyen and Althea Delos Reyes. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Warwick Senior High School students explore waste reduction plan at Scitech event

Staff WriterJoondalup Times

STUDENTS from Warwick Senior High School were among 170 secondary students participating in the Shell NXplorers program at Scitech this month.

Students in years 8 to 10 from Warwick SHS, South Coast Baptist College, Cecil Andrews College and Lakeland SHS displayed projects at the October 11 showcase.

Each project aimed to answer the focus question “How can we be more sustainable with our food and energy at our school?”.

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Projects include advertising campaigns for reducing straws, increasing the use of solar panels, creating basketball-inspired backboards for bins to encourage throwing rubbish in the bin, and using recycled materials for school gardens to grow food.

Six groups from Warwick SHS took part, with students Jenny Ngo, Ella Ferguson, Hannah Hyunh, Lisa Nguyen and Althea Delos Reyes exploring how to benefit from food waste and throw away less rubbish.

The students found there was a lot of food waste being thrown away during recess and lunch and in home economics classes.

They decided to create a food collection system through the introduction of a different type of bin at their school so they could collect the food scraps and then dispose of it in a worm farm.

They produced posters to educate students about what could and could not go into the bins and looked at how they could market this idea to the school to get more students participating.

Their plan was to reduce the amount of food going to landfill and use the worm castings on gardens within the school.

The group would like to see the project taken up at more schools around WA.

The NXplorers program is an international science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education program, launched by Shell and Scitech in March 2018.

Scitech chief executive Deb Hancock said the program gave students an opportunity for secondary school students to understand how STEM thinking could relate to their world and create relevant, realistic and positive solutions to issues.

“This agent of change mentality is immensely empowering, and demonstrates how and why STEM skills can shape future career opportunities as well as their day to day lives,” she said.