Planning your celebration

1. Submit your story to the Sustainable Living Challenge by the end of October.
2. Set a date for your celebration, possibly a school assembly at the end of Term 4
3. Invite key people and supporters to attend your celebrations. Consider inviting parents, your principal, school grounds staff, local council educators and local media.
4. At the assembly provide an overview of your project and the sustainability issues it explored and the perspectives and priorities of your students.  Make sure it is about learning not lecturing!
5. Present Sustainable Living Challenge certificates to students and teachers.
6. Send us a photo of your 2007 celebrations and we will put it on our website!

When organising your celebration, please consider;

• people that can help you - don’t try to do everything yourself.  Encourage students to plan and manage their own celebrations. Enlist help from other staff or parents. 
• people that might want to attend your celebrations.  Taking part in celebrations is a great way to reward people for their assistance and involvement in your projects.  It is also a good way for people (such as local council staff, school staff or your principal) to learn more about your projects and sustainability issues in a positive and uplifting way.
• the ecological footprint of your celebration. Celebrate your achievements in a way that walks the talk and demonstrates that living lightly is possible.  Holding a morning tea with disposable plates and cups will send some mixed messages!  The celebration is a learning opportunity for all involved.

Remember to build your celebrations into planning for next year’s Sustainable Living Challenge projects.   You could make it part of the students’ projects.  Perhaps you could encourage your student sustainability committee to organise it as part of their activities.  Plan it into one of the final assemblies each year as a positive and uplifting message to connect your students to.