Getting the hands dirty, recycled paper style

The time for actual papermaking finally came at 2pm yesterday (14 October) afternoon. For a second time the Prof Green Thumb team lugged the two buckets of paper pulp to the Mary Waters School, but luckily this time it was all arranged for the lesson. (A previous misunderstanding forced the project a day later but all was sorted now).

Frames, pulp and lots of black bags were used as the eight participating grade ten students of Mary Waters embarked on their papermaking mission. But first Simone told them all about their carbon footprint and helped them calculate it, just so they could see how they themselves fitted into the picture of perserving our environment. Then came the time to actually get the hands dirty and after a brief demonstration by Remy (as well as a talk on recycling), the floor was open for the students to do their own thing with the yellow/green mush inside the buckets .

Initial looks of disgust at the weird textured pulp turned to fun as every student filled their frame with recycled paper, pushing the water out through the mesh frame, laughing and chatting amongst each other. Quite the mess was made but an entire table filled up with new pieces of recycled paper as student after student finished their 'creations'. It wasn't only the learners who got their hands dirty though, the team had their fun too, helping out where they could and even making a few pages of recycled paper themselves.

Eventualy came the time for clean up though. The paper was done and now all we had to do was wait for it to dry.

The next session with Mary Waters is this afternoon at 1 where we will be helping the learners to paint the paper that they made. Watch this space for the update on how that went.