Post awaiting approval by TIG team!

We’re thrilled that Chloe, Anna and Milhan’s article about our palm oil project has been featured on the front page of the July issue of The Circle Gazette! Congratulations to Chloe W, Anna & Milhan! Follow the link to read the article in full!

http://www.enrichmentcircle.com/

http://pedmoremeerkats.wordpress.com/

Great news!  The European Parliament have this month voted in favour of a law to make manufacturers list palm oil in their ingredients.  The law will come into effect in 2015.  The Y4 Pedmore Meerkats have done lots of work writing to manufacturers, UK Members of Parliament and Government Departments to urge support for this bill.  In June they sent a petition signed by the children and staff at Pedmore School to the European Parliament ahead of the vote.

For more on this visit:

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0708-palm_oil_eu_labeling.html

and our PedmoreMeerkats' blog at:

http://pedmoremeerkats.wordpress.com/

:)

Here are the results from our survey of Year 4 & 5 pupils at St. Mary’s in Kingswinford. The replies are good in that they show that everyone is very keen on saving the rainforest! This is what we found:

St. Mary’s Years 4 & 5 (27 pupils)

Q1. Do you think rainforests are important? A: Everyone said that the rainforests are important for oxygen, medicine, habitats and as a source of food.
Q2. Have you heard of 'forest friendly' products? A: Yes - 18 No - 9.
Q3. Have you heard of the word 'sustainable' A: Yes - 15, No 10.
Q4. Do you look at labels and ingredients on products before buying them? A: Yes 18, No 8 of those who answered ‘yes’, 16 said that they checked to find out if products are forest friendly and 3 said that they checked to see if they contain palm oil.
Q5. Do you know where palm oil comes from? A: Yes - 25, No - 2.
Q6. Do you know of any supermarket products that contain palm oil? A: Yes - 6, No - 17
Q7. Do you know what palm oil has to do with orang-utans? A: Yes - 21, No - 3
Q8. Do you think manufacturers HAVE to tell you if their products contain palm oil and where it is from? A: Yes - 9, No – 15, Don’t know – 2.
Q9. Do you think manufacturers SHOULD label their products to show if they are forest friendly and if there is palm oil in them? A: Forest friendly - Yes 17, Palm oil – Yes - 24, Don't know - 1
Q10. Do you know what RSPO stands for? A: Yes - 0, No - 27
Q11. Have you ever visited the Pedmore Meerkats' blog at http://pedmoremeerkats.wordpress.com/? A: Yes - 2, No - 25
Q12. Would you like to help save the world's rainforests? A: Yes - 27, No - 0

As you can see, some of the pupils even look at labels and ingredients - 22 pupils. 21 people know what palm oil has to do with orang-utans and only 3 don't. The PedmoreMeerkats10 and the rest of us care about the orang-utans a lot.

We are really happy because we've finished investigation 1 and now we are on to investigation 2!

post written by by Harish

The results from our survey are in from Year 3 at Pedmore and also Y4/5 from St. Mary's!  We found quite a big difference because in both schools Y3 don't study the rainforests until they reach Y4.  This is what we found:

Pedmore Year 3 (30 pupils)

Q1. Do you think rainforests are important? 

A: Everyone said that the rainforests are important for oxygen, medicine, habitats and as a source of food.
 

Q2. Have you heard of 'forest friendly' products? 

A: Yes - 12, No - 18.  2 pupils were able to explain what 'forest friendly' meant.
 

Q3. Have you heard of the word 'sustainable'

A: Yes - 4, No 26.  Of the four who said yes, one thought it meant could be reused and one thought it had something to do with animal skin.
 

Q4. Do you look at labels and ingredients on products before buying them? 

A:  Yes 3, No 27
 

Q5.  Do you know where palm oil comes from? 

A: Yes - 3, No - 27.
 

Q6.  Do you know of any supermarket products that contain palm oil? 

A: Yes - 2 (shampoo & washing-up liquid), No - 28
 

Q7.  Do you know what palm oil has to do with orang-utans?

A: Yes - 0, No - 30
 

Q8.  Do you think manufacturers HAVE to tell you if their products contain palm oil and where it is from? 

A:  Yes - 1, No - 29
 

Q9.  Do you think manufacturers SHOULD label their products to show if they are forest friendly and if there is palm oil in them? 

A: Yes 23, No - 0, Don't know - 7
 

Q10.  Do you know what RSPO stands for? 

A:  Yes - 0, No - 30
 

Q11.  Have you ever visited the Pedmore Meerkats' blog at http://pedmoremeerkats.wordpress.com/? 

A:  Yes - 0, Not yet - 30
 

Q12.  Would you like to help save the world's rainforests? 

A: Yes - 30, No - 0

We'll be re-doing our survey soon.  Year 3 have seen our appeal video and they've already joined our letter writing campaign as a result!   We think our second survey with Year 3 will show quite a few changes!  See our next blog post for the results from St. Mary's!

For all the latest, please also check out the Pedmore Meerkats' blog