Journée « Développement durable » 3è3 - 3è4

Madame, Monsieur,

Vous trouverez ci-dessous un article rédigé, en anglais, par les élèves de la classe de 3ème 4.

PLASTIC ATTACK DAY

On Tuesday 26th February, our class and the other year 10, the 3.3 - 39 students accompanied by 9 adults - rode our bikes - or the school’s bikes - to Ouistreham.

The ride to the beach was an adventure in itself.

We went along the Orne river it’s called “Voie Verte” and the weather, even if a bit cold, was very sunny.
But the first incident happened when one of our friends fell off her bike, she didn’t hurt herself fortunately. Secondly, another schoolgirl had to give up and a boy had a flat tire. Finally, at the end of the ride another girl fell off her bike too.
With all these events, one group arrived very late - we were divided into four groups - and their ride finally lasted three hours.

The morning was dedicated to a discovery activity.
When we were at the beach, a man called Jean-Yves, from the association Rivage Propre, arrived to welcome us and half of us went with a young lady.
They made us aware of the biodiversity and vulnerability of the foreshore.
The first task that we did was to take all that we found on the beach and sort them into three categories.
On the sand we found shells, crustaceans - alive or dead - seaweed and stones. As a conclusion, we learnt that the foreshore is a whole ecosystem and that it is vulnerable. What’s more, we discovered the problems that affect the bay like micro plastic that the fish or other animals eat, and end in our plates, and the waste that represented a fourth category.

Lunch was also part of the project.
At lunchtime, we ate on the beach. Our objective was to bring a Zero Waste lunch and of course we cooked ourselves picnic without waste. Some people brought mixed salads, sandwiches and crisps they had cooked themselves. Some of us also brought cookies or biscuits for dessert. Others brought fruits. Everybody brought a flask and reusable containers.

The afternoon was a short but rich moment.
After lunch, we had to clean the beach.
There was not much work to do because the beach was not very dirty at first glance. Still we found a lot of glass bottles and some papers. We also found food wrappings, plastic toys, pieces of foam and many fragments of plastic on the sand.
Most of us found this afternoon really short because it lasted only half an hour minutes. We also couldn’t do land art as it had been planned.

The day was a success as a whole.
Despite some incidents, we enjoyed the day and had the impression we learnt a lot.
The bicycle ride was a great moment for most of us and we had fun preparing our zero waste lunches and eating them all together. We discovered that zero waste was rather easy and are ready to change some of our habits.
And all of us are ready to do it again !

“Preparing a picnic without waste was not complicated. For my picnic, I only produced two pieces of waste : the ham packaging and the butter wrapping. The day was interesting, we learnt a lot about waste and the sea. I was surprised to learn that waste was part of the composition of the sea foreshore, and I was surprised by the waste that could be found on the beach” Aloïs

“The day out was really great. The beginning of the ride was rather simple. I learnt a lot about ecology and the beach biodiversity, but the activities were a bit long in the morning. The ride back was really difficult. The zero waste picnic was a great idea because it prevents pollution everyday.” Cécilia

“To prepare my picnic, I bought bread and ham without the wrapping. I asked the baker not to put paper around the baguette and the butcher to put the slice of ham in my box.
I liked the bicycle ride !” Steeve