SUSTAINABILITY AT EMMAUS
In his encyclical 'Laudato Si', Pope Francis explains how we are summoned to see our life as an ecological vocation.
“The whole of creation is one interrelated community before God, therefore as members of this community, we are invited to see God in every living thing. Every creature is the object of the Father’s tenderness who gives it its place in the world. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of His love and in its few seconds of existence, God enfolds it with His affection’. ”
Pope Francis addressed his encyclical to every person on the planet. We now have the inspiration and leadership to change our hearts and minds, and behaviour, to care for our common home. Our students here at Emmaus have taken a lead role already, through their enthusiasm and passion to be change agents in sustainability.
Pope Francis has written a letter addressed to every person on this planet, asking us all to protect our common home, the earth. In his encyclical, Laudato Si', Pope Francis speaks openly about the devastating effects of climate change on people and the planet.
RIVER DETECTIVES
We are so proud to announce that we are participating in the National River Detectives program. Throughout the year Emmaus students collect samples of our local Corangamite waterways and analyse them to determine their level of suitability for our precious wildlife, waterbugs, flora and fauna.
Not only will we be working on many learning outcomes from the Victorian Curriculum, we will also be responding to the Catholic Social Teaching principle ‘Care for our Common Home’ and responding to the letter Pope Francis wrote to us, asking us to do things like this.
When we collect water samples, we use a bucket on a rope. Then we use our scientific water testing kit to test the quality of the water sample for pH level, phosphorus, turbidity, electrical conductivity, temperature and salinity.
As we complete each test we enter the data onto a record sheet which was then shared online with the council.
We also use tally graphs to collect data on what we see around a waterway we vist. Items includes litter, insects, non-living items, birds and waterbugs. Even though we are young, we are contributing to caring for our common home.
You can see our full River Detectives Story of Change here.
reduce, reuse, recycle at emmaus
Emmaus continue to choose sustainable practices including:
the use of PAM, eliminating paper copies of permission slips and medical forms.
the delivery of the fortnightly school newsletter digitally via our Emmaus App.
the opportunity to access the Uniform Exchange for free in Wayaperri (our gymnasium).
the introduction of Seesaw: A digital learning portfolio
operating the school canteen and other fundraising activities via the online ordering and cashless CDF PAY system.
