In Term 2 the Meerkats tackled the new Pollution Pirate interest badge. We had already learnt about the water-cycle and how a piece of litter that is lying around can end up in our rivers, dams and the sea. We played “The Floor is Litter” and did an instructive activity on how long different types of litter last (fruit peels a few months, a chip packet 75 years and a beverage can 200 years!).
The big requirement was to do a Litter Clean-up as a Den. On a chilly Saturday morning, intrepid Pollution Pirates met at the Liesbeek River opposite Hartleyvale Stadium to join the Friends of the Liesbeek River in picking up litter. Our mission was to keep our rivers and seas clean and litter free to allow our natural flora and fauna to thrive. We started out by orienting ourselves according to the mountain and the river and played a quick game of N, E, S, W to warm up before donning some gloves and getting to work filling up as many bags with litter as possible.
Our numbers were unfortunately quite low due to the horrible winter germs; however, we are very proud of all the Meerkats who took the time to fulfill this requirement on their own in order to earn the badge. We hope the Meerkats will keep their eyes open and pick up any litter they see in their day to day lives and encourage their families to do the same.
Karen Meyer (ADS)
