BKK Prep, Event, News, Primary June 14, 2019

This Wednesday saw the Year 3 break-out area transformed into an upcycled utopia. It marked the end of Year 3’s Service Project that has used Second Chance Bangkok as its inspiration. Learning has focused on sustainability and the importance of upcycling, together with the ‘Three R’s’ of recycling, renewing and reusing.

For the whole of this school year, the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development have underpinned everything that we have done in Year 3 and so Second Chance Bangkok was the logical choice to connect with for our Service Project.

The Service Project started a couple of weeks ago when representatives from Second Chance Bangkok came into the school and ran workshops with the Year 3 children. Some of the workshops were practical upcycling – turning old t-shirts into bags and old fabric and magazines into postcards; whilst others allowed time and inspiration to brainstorm ideas and to learn more about the work that Second Chance Bangkok.

With the Service Project coinciding with Arts Week, we decided to take an artistic approach to our upcycling, with each class creating individual and collaborative pieces of upcycled art. These were all on display on Wednesday. Highlights included a collage shark, a collage Thai women’s football team shirt, shadow art cityscape and a beautifully painted patchwork. 3DC even had live collaborative art taking place during the showcase, creating stunningly simple yet effective art inspired by Japanese brush-work artist Kazuaki Tanahashi and Vietanmese artist Thich Nhat Hanh.

Home learning over the last two weeks has also focused on creating upcycled items for sale. The Year 3 children certainly impressed with their creativity and ingenuity! These items were put on sale during the showcase and fetched an impressive 2000 baht, which will go to Second Chance Bangkok. The large, collaborative art pieces will go on sale next week as part of the Arts Week Silent Auction. Again, all proceeds from the sale of the Year 3 collaborative artwork will go to Second Chance.

It has been a fantastic effort from teachers, children and parents and shows the importance and power of learning with a real-world context. If you want to learn more about Second Chance Bangkok, please visit their website (www.scbkk.org).

Martyn Chadderton

Year 3 Leader