#1000actionsfortheplanet

#lifeonland

There have been a lot of things happening in my little revegetation area lately. The entire first quadrant has been cleared of weeds and the tube stock planted there has taken off. Natural regeneration and an old seed bank are playing a vital role as well. With the ground left open and devoid of weeds, the existing native seeds have had a chance to sprout, and at the moment there is probably twice as much natural regeneration as there is planted tube stock. Already I’ve recorded native species, that have previously been absent moving in, such as bridal sundews, branching fringed lilies and splendid fairy wrens.

A pair of Bronzewings also found it a safe place to raise their young, whom are now fully fledged. A strange species of case moth, that I haven’t seen before, was feasting off a thriving honey bush. By the next day it had dragged its pyramid shaped home of sticks and silk to another nearby honey bush, so as not to exhaust its food supply. A wise principle that we should all follow, as taught in the caterpillars’ own, particular style.

The Prickly Moses Wattle has just finished seeding and already many of the released seeds are sprouting, forming a light carpet of spiny green. In amongst them, Wallaby, Kangaroo and Lemon Scented grasses prevail, rejoicing in the space created after the removal of the non-native Rye grass and Velvet grass. Several butterfly and moth species are laying their eggs on these grasses, and brushing past them on hot days sends moths pouring out from them, bumbling into each other and the ground, then flying to nearby clumps of grass where they won’t get rudely interrupted from their mid-day siesta. All in all, it’s a busy time for the residents of the revegetation as well as the carers!

Written by Youth Board Member Charles

Green Lab is a Millennium Kids program to protect, monitor and increase canopy in the Perth metropolitan area. Charles, a MK Youth Board member, initiated his own project, joined Millennium Kids and is now supported in his project endeavours by Cathy Levett, a MK Mentor, and by the Shire of Mundaring with provision of seedlings.

For more information about how to get your own Green Lab initiative up and running in your area email info@milleniumkids.com.au

 

Yes, it official – our Kids love trees and as part of #1000actionsfortheplanet they developed Green Lab so to all our tree buddies and collaborators we are so excited to announce that Millennium Kids has been successful in receiving a State National Resource Management NRM Community Stewardship Grant for Green Lab.

” Green Lab project enables young people to address concerns for their future through revegetation and long-term protection of natural areas. Our survey of over 500 young people identified climate change, and the loss of tree canopy as major environmental problems facing future generations. This is a youth led STEAM initiative, planned, undertaken and monitored by schools, community groups and LGA’s. Through it, young people will realise their vision for a connected canopy across Perth that creates a cooler climate, while providing habitat for native flora and fauna, and green spaces for people.”

The grant is for $308, 804. This will help us work with our partners and friends to support young people in their vision for a cooler, greener city.

We visited Coolbinia Primary School with Simon Millman, local MP, students and teachers to celebrate the first official Green Lab Biome – Coolbinia Primary School Bushland.

We’ll be keeping you updated regularly with Green Lab stories over the next three years!

Each year Millennium Kids holds an UNconference where the kids get to decide what they do, this year Aelwen gave us her highlights.

Day one of the Millennium Kids 23rd UNconference was held at Bold Park. I set up my market place stall. I was showcasing my sump vegetation project to increase urban tree canopy in Vic Park and to provide habitat for species such as the red tail black cockatoos and Carnaby cockatoos.

Other stalls showcased waste projects, learning about biodiversity through art, inventions to clean up waste in the ocean and information about the environment.

We sat in a big circle and we said hello to each other in different languages, I was excited to hear Arabic being spoken as well Noongar and many other languages.

We went on a bush walk led by Millennium Kids member Patrick and mentor Wayne. Patrick knows a lot about birds! Unfortunately we didn’t see many that day. We did see a dead lizard which was really sad, we think it was run over by a bike. Patrick talked about how to make Banksia beer and Wayne talked about different habitats.

We also went to the Regional Resource Recovery Centre and saw what happens to the FOGO (food organics garden organics) bins. I was surprised that it wasn’t super smelly. We also saw lots of bin chickens. I also learnt that lots of people put dirty nappies in the recycling, this is really disappointing that more people don’t know they can’t be recycled.

The other group went to the Calcutta Tip shop. They were given $50.00 to create a waste innovation project. They only seen $12.oo. They bought a basket and 20 coffee mugs. They are going to use them at the Salty X Markets in Trigg. People can take a free cup to reduce waste.

We also played games and created some of our own. We also ate chocolate, it was lots of fun.

Day two of the Millennium Kids UNconference was held at Piney Lakes. This was my favourite day!

We met some people from Native ARC Inc., they brought in Nick the tawny frog mouth(named after Nick Fury), Tommy the oblong turtle and some bobtail lizards called Bill and Bob(that were both girls), there was also a python and some joeys. They had towels so the animals wouldn’t poop all over the floor.

We also met Steve Heron Author, author of the book Maximus. He taught us about descriptive writing, he was really funny and I think I will be a better writer after his insights. I have already started reading Maximus and it is really good.

We also met with Green World Revolution and I learnt about how good micro-greens are for me. My little baby greens have already sprouted, I can’t wait to eat them.

We also had the Disco on that night, it was awesome!

There was a really cool band, limbo, lots of yummy food and dancing. It was organised by Ebonie to raise money for the Coolgardie kids on country program. Ebonie raised over $1000 with special thanks to the Minister for Environment Stephen Dawson for his donation.

Thanks Bull Creek Lions Club Inc for helping access Piney Lakes Environmental Education Centre. It was the perfect venue.

Day three of the UNconference was held at All Saints’ College WA. We talked about waste solutions and made a prosthetic leg with Curtin Engineers Without Borders out of a plunger, a sponge a shoe, a pole, a pipe and some rope and duct tape. I also learnt that health care in Cambodia is not as accessible as in Australia.

We talked to the The Field Trip in Victoria, they are a bit like Millennium kids and are looking at how to built an igloo out of old milk cartons for the homeless and piggy banks, also made out of milk cartons. They must drink a lot of milk. They were really nice.

We also had the serious business of electing the Youth Board and the adult Council so we can continue to have fun, care for the environment and eat chocolate. I was really excited that I was accepted onto the Youth Board for a second year. We have 15 kids on the Youth Board.

By Aelwen Youth Board Member

With not one but 3 finalists, Millennium Kids wants to say a huge congrats to all the MK teams and individuals recognised for their youth leadership in the WA Youth Awards 2019, The Youth Futures Innovation for a Sustainable Future category.

Edulis, a futures thinking edible cutlery solution to plastic waste,  Kids on Country, a youth led citizen science initiative in Coolgardie and Jacob Cassey, project manager for the new MK website,  were all recognised for their contributions to a sustainable future.

Super big congrats to Jacob for winning the award celebrating your role in project managing the development of our new website and online portal. Well deserved. Thanks to Lotterywest and Waste Authority of Western Australia for funding our website and to Media on Mars for the technical skills to help Jacob realise his vision.

I recently had the privilege of accompanying the Kids on Country on their trip to the Burra Rock Conservation Park. I live in Perth and have been hearing about the Kids on Country program for a long time and it sounded so cool. The young indigenous people in Coolgardie have identified that they weren’t spending enough time on country and have made plans to change that. The Kids have their say on what they want to do, where they want to go and what changes they want to work towards in their community.

I carpooled with Cat and Wayne to Coolgardie where we went straight to see Nanny Betty. She welcomed us into the neighbourhood and gave us tea and we spent time with her dogs. Then we went around to the families, reminded them about the trip to Burra Rock and gave them information packs about the trip.

The following day the kids met in the park, piled on the bus and went out on country. We were joined by locals, visitors from Bunbury and the Police for a Spring Into Parks picnic. It was a really fun day of swimming, exploring and learning on country. We couldn’t have a barbecue because it was too hot so we had chicken, cheese and salad rolls and fruit under the shade of a tree.

While we were staying in Coolgardie we camped in the bush and ate waste free meals cooked over a fire. After the trip to Burra Rock, we met up with some lovely people from Kalgoorlie that we hope to work with on future Kids on Country trips.

The Kids on Country program has a bit of a fan club amongst the Millennium Kids that live in Perth, so much so that Ebonie recently held a fundraiser disco and raised over $1000 for the program. Go Ebonie!

Thanks to everyone that supported the disco, we could support four young women from Coolgardie to travel to Perth to attend the WA Youth Awards. yes, the Kid son Country team were Finalists. I was lucky enough to meet these girls, Dolly, Tamara, Krystal and Jasmin in Coolgardie. The passion that they have for the program and for their community is evident.

Occasionally, other members of Millennium Kids are asked to accompany the Kids on Country and share a certain skill set with them based on skills that the kids have expressed interest in learning. I was asked to come along and bring my ukulele and share some of my knowledge in environmental science with the kids. It was an honour to spend time with such a lovely group of young people in such a special place.

Thanks to the WA Parks Foundation for supporting this Kids on Country program through Spring Into Parks. This partnership gave us  a fabulous opportunity to take the kids on country with visitors who hadn’t been to the Park before. This gives our team an opportunity to share their knowledge and take guests on country to connect with beauty of the Great Western Woodland.

My name is Bella Poll and I want you to pitch your ideas for a waste free world.

I was recently elected Service Captain for 2020, which I am really excited about! I definitely think that Millennium Kids made a big an impact on me and I have continued my passion for environmental sustainability.

My school is aiming towards becoming a waste free accredited school next year and we’d love some of the Millennium Kids to share their Waste Free Movement ideas to help students understand the impact of waste.

I recently helped some younger PLC students from the Art Club make clay pots which we sold at a Silent Auction at the school on Open Garden Day, raising $260.00. We would love to donate the money to Millennium Kids for one of the Waste Free Movement youth led projects.

If you have a Waste Free Movement project pitch your proposal to MK by 2ndDecember 2019 and  $260 could be yours to kickstart your project.

Use the project link https://www.millenniumkids.com.au/get-involved/join-millennium-kids/membership-application/

When did you get involved with Millennium Kids?

I got involved in the middle of 2019.

What are your activities and what do they involve?

I am volunteering with Millennium Kids in a research and analysis role. My tasks mostly involve quantitative analysis. At the moment, I am primarily focused on setting the organisation’s budgets and helping mentor a group of high school students in laying the foundation for their idea of creating edible cutlery.

What attracted you to the cause?

There still exists a strong apathy towards environmental concerns in significant parts of our communities. This is concerning not only for the future of the habitability of the Earth – insofar as humansurvival is concerned – but presents grave socio-economic and political concerns. Millennium Kids has the ability to address this failure of our educational system in a way that most environmental organisations could not. Its experience with working with and alongside youths places it in a unique position to craft messages that would be more receptive to younger audiences, while being more emotionally appealing to adults.

In your opinion, what is the most important work that this organization does?

Millennium Kids’ most important work lies in exposing youths to the myriad considerations that have to be taken into account in order to advance their projects. Through its programs, the idealistic concepts conceived by youths could be tempered with realistic considerations that are necessary to ensure success. In encouraging children to think about the “how” rather than the “what” from an early age, and in introducing them to the corporate and/or political world, Millennium Kids provide a considerable amount of assistance in setting these children up for success in future projects.

What do you hope the organization will achieve in the near future? In the long term?

It is my hope that Millennium Kids would eventually shift to helping children better address the issue of climate change and other environmental concerns. Whether it be through projects with long-term (though not necessarily large-scale) goals in mind, or to help children adjust their addresses to politicians from a more rational, less emotional angle (to me, the former is more impactful than the latter at passing legislation). Accordingly, it would not be unwelcome to see children understand not only the other side of the argument, but also the difficulties in realizing certain goals – for instance, the obstacles to a complete shift to renewables or to see world peace. Should such understanding exist, long-term change could be better made.

What’s your top tip for living a more sustainable life?

Education and innovation. Environmental sustainability is about more than saving water and planting trees. Bandages to stem crises are, by definition, unsustainable, even if the obvious math in regards to its environmental impact were ignored. On the other hand, objectively learning about environmental issues and then disseminating that information helps promote greater awareness and apply pressure to cut down on negative externalities.

Do you have a message to share?

Never run with scissors.

#1000actionsfortheplanet

#responsibleconsumptionandproduction

 

My name is Rebecca and I am 10 years old. Earlier this year we had Cat from Millennium Kids come to our school to talk to us about the dangers of a wasteful planet. When I say “waste” I don’t just mean plastic pollution but that’s what I mainly focused on.

That day, I learnt that one kid CAN make a difference, by not using single use plastics like straws and bags. I got inspired! So this is where my project started. I decided to decline individually packaged foods and to not wrap my school lunches in plastic-wrap. Instead I found a recipe online on how to make beeswax-wraps, which are pieces of fabric coated in beeswax and you use them in place of plastic wrap. My mum and I experimented with the recipe and made ourselves a set for home which we all loved using and found that they were very effective.

At the same time, my class was also inspired by Cat’s fun presentation and were trying to encourage the whole school, starting with my class to have waste free Wednesday. One morning when I was making my lunch I had a brain-sparkmoment!!! I could make a beeswax wrap for everyone in my class! It would take some time but that was okay since I enjoyed doing it and the holidays coming up soon, and hopefully it would encourage my class to go waste free. So that’s exactly what I did. I made thirty six wraps which was enough for all my class mates, teachers, and Deputy Principals. My friend told me that they changed her lunchbox and lifestyle. Which made me feel great.

I did more research and found another recipe which was easier and even more effective.

The ingredients are beeswax, coconut oil and gum rosin.

I love the final product.

 

Thanks to the City of Stirling for the Living Green support for our school.

At the recent Western Australian HASS teachers conference, My Future My Voice, Millennium Kids were lucky enough to be able to deliver the keynote speech on the Saturday of the program. We followed an excellent Welcome to Country from a HASS teacher Dylan Collard.

Catrina Aniere, CEO and former teacher, led the keynote speech. She spoke about her experience in a classroom and different strategies used to engage children with the curriculum. She described taking children out on country to learn about the land in Port Hedland and taking children down to the river in South Perth.

Cat went on to tell the story of the beginnings of Millennium Kids. Some of Cats’ students were selected to attend a UN youth conference and when they got back to Australia they decided that they wanted to run their own conference – a conference run for kids by kids. It was the first conference of its kind and was the beginning of Kids Helping Kids, a group that later developed into Millennium Kids.

Some of the Millennium Kids  talked about their projects. Ebonie spoke about her fundraiser disco for Kids on Country. It’s going to be a super fun event in October to raise money for a fantastic cause – taking indigenous children out on country their local elders to build life skills and care for their land.

Patrick spoke about his project where he is painting native birds. He intends to create a poster or a calendar to inform people about the value of planting native species in your own garden and how it can be used to attract and retain native birds.

Charles spoke about his revegetation project on an area near his house. He described some of the most interesting plants that he had found and the processes that he was taking to care for his patch such as manually weeding the area.

Ebonie, Patrick and Charles all described the processes that they went through to pitch their project, acquire funding and the work that they have done on their project until now.

I had the opportunity to speak about my project – Youth Challenges on the Environment 2019I have compiled a document of issues that Millennium Kids have identified and suggestions that they have come up with. I’ve presented the ideas in the form of draft policies, and presented them to Stephen Dawson, our environment minister at the Millennium Kids website launch this year. I was motivated by the sheer volume of ideas created in the workshops with Millennium Kids. Each project undertaken by a young person focuses on one or two issues so I wanted to make sure that youth voices were heard regarding all the issues that they care about.

It was humbling to be asked to speak about our projects at a teacher’s conference. The way that Millennium Kids operates is different to conventional classroom. Kids make the decisions, we choose what to learn and explore and what projects to work on. Cathy, one of our Council members, explained the role that mentors have within Millennium Kids. This gave the audience a sense of how our organisation operates. She described the artist that has helped Patrick develop his artwork, the lawyer that helped to edit my policies and how she herself had mentored children that wanted to do projects on turtles.

We got a great response from the conference and had many people approach us at the market afterwards to ask questions about our projects and our workshops, buy our merchandise and offer their help as mentors. We look forward to working with the HASS community in our endeavours!

 

Written by MK Rachel

Westminster Junior Primary School teams have some cool ideas for reducing waste at school. The 20 Junior Primary students have been looking at what it means to be a sustainability leader. The students have been keeping a diary of the changes they make. They have mapped a number of ideas for both personal action and as school-based projects. Here are some of the ideas they have put into action so far.

  • I talked to my mum about plastic bags and now she is using cloth bags.
  • We checked out the bin near our classroom and found people had thrown out whole pieces of fruit. We are going to have a BIG FRUIT BOWL where kids can donate their fruit if they don’t want it. Others can take fruit from the bowl if they are hungry.
  • I am going to try to reduce the single use plastic in my lunchbox.
  • I like the ice-cream from the canteen but it comes in single use plastic. We could try to make the waste into an art project. We are going to make our own waste free icy poles next term.

Even the teachers are getting on board. One teacher is going to try making toothpaste and the other teacher is bringing her own fork so she doesn’t use a plastic single use one from the canteen.

The program is part of #1000actionsfortheplanet, supported by the Living Green program, funded by City of Stirling. The students have taken part in 2 sessions to look at the big issues, challenge themselves to make small changes and develop a school waste management plan.