WEIRD AND WONDERFUL… Middleton Public School students in Dr Seuss’ Garden are (L-R) Natalia Scherer, Emily Wild, Toby Fliedner (partly behind the tree), Seth Bennett and Corinne Scherer.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ― Dr Seuss, The Lorax
Middleton Public School did it again, as it has for the past seven years – taking out the regional first place in the 2019 SIMS Metal Waste to Art competition.
This year the school won the Sustainable Building 3D category and received $500 in prize money for their creation called Dr Suess’ Garden.
The garden was made from thousands of plastic lids by Middleton students and staff under the direction of Helen Standen.
“We are pretty proud of our achievement,” said Helen. The school and wider community helped to collect plastic lids for at least 12 months to complete the project, while the two purple pipes and the green strapping used for grass were waste from the recycled Water Rising Main Pipeline construction.
“We not only participate to beautify our school, but every student from Kindergarten to Year 6 gets involved teaching them about reducing, reusing and recycling waste,” said Helen. The students work on the project during their library time in the first term. “We love creating something with bottle tops as every child can participate threading the tops.”
This year’s Dr. Suess’ Garden brightened up a dull, dirty corner in the playground adding to the ever growing collection of Waste To Art constructions around the school grounds.
Waste to Art’s aim is to challenge perceptions about rubbish and create a new life for materials that would have been thrown away.