Sunday, February 3, 2019
Autistic Students Enjoy Inspiring Insight In To Environmental Sustainability In West Sussex
Students at LVS Hassocks enjoyed a revealing and in-depth look into ways to protect the local environment through recycling and sustainability on Tuesday 29th January. The drop down day, which took the students off timetable via a series of engaging sessions and visits, allowed them to experience different activities around the county to provide them with greater knowledge of a crucial subject.
All students from 11 to 19 at LVS Hassocks school, for young people on the autism spectrum and ten miles north of Brighton, took part in the revealing day. This included a group who visited both the Biffa waste management facility in Horsham, where 75% of waste is recovered for recycling, and the Veolia Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility where rubbish unsuitable for recycling is turned into enough electricity to power 25,000 homes. A talk by West Sussex Waste Partnership’s waste prevention advisor Colin McFarlin helped drive the message home that there is more everyone can do to collectively help the local environment.
The Sea Life Brighton Centre was the destination for another group of LVS Hassocks students, who found out more about the serious impact plastic waste is having on the marine environment. Sessions held in school included a guest visitor in Carrie Cort who founded Sussex Green Living, an environmental awareness and education initiative aiming to encourage families to live greener lives.
Other highly interactive sessions at the school to engage students with the subject of recycling and sustainability included making their own soap, cooking with leftovers, recycled fashion and even turning vegetables in to musical instruments.
LVS Hassocks’ Director of SEN Sarah Sherwood said: “Our drop down days always really inspire and engage students to learn from and experience important topics, and our recycling and sustainability day lived up to that. The trips out, as well as being excellent real world learning events, also gave students the opportunity to become more at ease in busy, public environments. The sustained engagement and smiles on students’ faces at school demonstrated how relevant and applicable the sessions chosen by staff were for them”.