At the beginning of the year, Nature Connect #NatureConnectSA awarded Pinelands High School with a Stodels nursery gift card.  This was awarded to the school in recognition of our progress in and commitment to Biodiversity education during 2021. Nature Connect is a Not-for-Profit that supports the preservation of Cape Town’s unique and biodiverse natural heritage through education, training and conservation initiatives.

Last week we were able to use this gift card. A section of the school grounds which previously only had a few trees and some grass on it was cleared and has been transformed into a 'Fynbos Examples' bed. This bed will be extremely useful when we teach ecology to Grade 10 Life Sciences students. 

This bed is the newest addition to our Biodiversity Garden.  This garden has been designed to teach specific aspects of the Natural and Life Science curricula. For example earlier this year Grade 8 students could see ecological vocabulary in action. The garden creates an outdoor classroom for engaging in the practical learning of environmental topics.

Besides providing an educational outdoor classroom, this area contributes to the preservation of Biodiversity and has created a beautiful space in the school grounds for both students and staff.

The pictures show the donated plants, the area before the plants were added and the newly planted Fynbos Examples bed. #NatureConnectSA

@natureconnectsa

Grade 12 Visual Art students in action earlier this week. The theme for Visual Art in Term 2, Matric 2022 was 'Play'. We set a relatively open topic for Grade 12 students to encourage them to work in the medium and subject of their choice. Matrics may work in any Visual Art medium such as painting, drawing, sculpting, animation or videography. As always the Visual Art students are directed to create artworks that are personal, original and meaningful. #WeAreProudlyPinelands #VisualArt #Creativity #LoveArt #Paint #Painting #Art

The theme for Visual Art in Term 2, Matric 2022 was 'Play'. We set a relatively open topic for Grade 12 students to encourage them to work in the medium and subject of their choice. Matrics may work in any Visual Art medium such as painting, drawing, sculpting, animation or videography. As always the Visual Art students are directed to create artworks that are personal, original and meaningful.

This is Gemma Trench's response to the topic and her first attempt at stop motion. This is a natural progression of Gemma's art which has always carried with it a strong sense of narrative. Gemma built and painted the set and characters herself and then 'filmed' the artwork by taking a considerable number of photographs. The final stop motion contains 1760 individual photos and at least 15 hours of filming.  This is after all the sets and characters have been made.

Our Eco Club organised a very successful Thrift Fair at the end of May.  Students were given the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint and keep up with the thrifting trend. They brought clothes from home and exchanged each item for something donated by someone else. 

Fast fashion is having a horrendous impact on the environment. Landfills are filling up at an unsustainable rate and we all need to make little changes to our lifestyle to do our part. Second-hand clothes swaps have taken the world by storm and are becoming the ‘new’ in-thing with thrift shops and fairs popping up in all the trendy neighbourhoods. 

The latest edition of Forging A Future (our quarterly newsletter for Alumni) is out.  Read it below.