Sustainable Campus Info Boards are up

If you are learning or teaching the SDGs or units on Energy & Water Conservation / Solar / Biodiversity / Sustainable cities, you might like to break up a lesson with a visit to some of our new campus info boards. The boards give an insight into how we are trying to address some of these issues right here at Dover. We know we have a long way to go to create a truly Sustainable Campus but we hope these help to stimulate more ideas of what can be done and provide case studies for your students too.

The boards also have QR codes that link to the Buildings & Operations pages of our Education for Sustainable Development website that have much more information about how we are addressing Sustainable Development on Campus. Please do contact nhu if you'd like to add any other good examples to any of the pages on this site.

Locations:

Solar: Near Guardhouse and also Level 5 of Middle School Block overlooking Junior sports Hall

Energy Efficiency and Conservation: Level 4 Primary Block overlooking Heritage Cafe

Water Conservation: Level 4 Middle School Block

Flood Control: Beside Staff Room /Canteen

Biodiversity: Outside Foundation office and above entrance to music beside High School Centre

This initiative was spear-headed by Operations & Facilities Department and kindly assisted by Communications and Foundation.

Beach Clean Up on March 22, 201

On March 22, Environmental Service had a beach clean up at East Coast. Our aim was to prevent trash from entering the ocean, or at least reduce the amount of trash that was already on the beach to protect and reduce the impact on the ecosystem. We picked up a lot of trash, and the majority of it was styrofoam, cigarettes and microplastics. Even though we are a small group and weren’t able to pick up every single piece of trash on the beach, the amount we did pick up was prevented from entering the ocean and destroying marine life. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists today, but it does break down into microplastic, releasing chemicals and some fish can eat it. Because of this, humans will be affected too, if we eat fish that has eaten plastic. This is one reason why every piece of trash we picked up counts, no matter how big or small the amount is. But the bigger the amount, the better, so we need more people to join next time so we can cover more areas that have litter on it!

Bean Too Long

After two weeks away the beds were somewhat overgrown, so the team split into weeding duties and demolition work.

The cucumbers and garlic were freed from weeds and the world's smallest cucumber was discovered:

Meanwhile two old rotting beds were moved to make way for the new space age one we had constructed before the break:

There was excitement when some beetle larvae were disturbed, but we are fairly sure they were more startled than us. Don't worry, they were safely moved to new homes in the garden.

Finally, to explain the title, some long beans were harvested and taken home- Incredibly Edible.

Before you throw that away......

Here's a great way to use your old veggie peelings and cut offs to make a lovely tasty stock:

Whenever you cook with vegetables, 

take the peelings, roots, outer leaves, skin etc, and put it in a bag in the freezer. (You can also freeze those veggies that will go off if you don't use them soon!)

When the bag is full, boil it all up for a couple of hours. 

Drain and there you have a tasty, colourful vegetable stock. Great for soups, risotto or stews.

Enjoy!

Tips:

• For a nice colour try sweet potato peelings,
• For a tasty Udon soup, make sure you have plenty of garlic peel and ginger skin in there

(Afterwards you can add the nice soggy veggie bits to your composter if you have one)