Eco-Outreach in School

Mayflower Secondary is honoured to continue the partnership with Cicada Tree Eco Place (CTEP) in 2009.

The first event that was held in partnership was CTEP was the Eco-Outreach held on 9th January 2009, during the CCA exhibition for the Secondary One Orientation.

Cicada Tree Eco Place set up two exhibitions to share with the students and parents about Eco-living in school and at home.

These were the familiar YEGs who has helped to promote Shoo Mozzie since 2008 at the Singapore Garden Festival.


Being in the YEGs allow our students to have opportunities to practise their salesmanship skills.

A new group of YEGs set up the exhibition at about 12.30 p.m.

The container that is used to hold the lemon grass is made of cane and is recycleable.


Banana leaf was used as table cloth instead of the normal plastic one to demonstrate that it is possible to be organic when a little more effort is put in.


The new group of YEGs explaining the merit of using organic insect repellent.



The YEG will be promoting the Love Earth Gift Pack on Valentine's Day.

Cicada Tree Eco-Place Love Earth Gift Pack

Eco-Contents:

1)Shoo! Mozzie — A glass bottle of herbal mosquito repellant made of fragrant essential oil of Citronella in Aloe vera gel.

All ingredients are organically grown and produced.

2)A pressed leaf bookmark from native trees, with natural Jute fibre tassel. Look & feel the fantastic venation as you read!

3)Aromatic posy of Cinnamon bark, Bay leaf, Star Anise &/or Rosemary. To place in your cupboard or office drawer.

4)Eco-packaging: Natural Jute fibre cloth, ribbon of Raffia reed plant & unbleached corrugated cardboard backing.

5)Cicada Tree wildlife education leaflet, printed on 100% recycled paper.

This contents label is printed on reused paper. Plastic is harmful to Earth & we have tried to minimise its use.

This gift has been hand-packed with love & gratitude for the natural riches of our only home Planet Earth!

Every cent from its sale goes to Cicada Tree Eco-Place Wildlife Education programs.

Clean and Green 2008

The YEGs were at the Clean And Green 2008 at the Toa Payoh HUB from 22 Nov to 23 Nov 2008.

Eugene and Fang Qi describing the ingredients that are found in Shoo Mozzie.


Kenneth, a memeber of the Mayflower Alumni and Jian Hao were also on stage conducting the game show.


Meanwhile, Rui Siang was busy explaining to a member of the public about the Green Bus.

Marcus was busy conducting a game.



The YEG of 2007 were out in full force on Sunday to promote the Shoo Mozzie.




When Dr Ng Eng Hen, the Minister of Education visited the Shoo Mozzie booth, he was interested in how we can use natural ingredients found in the kitchen as insect repellent.

Here Kenneth is explaining to him about the making of Shoo Mozzie.



Simon and Eugene explaining to the aunties about the Shoo Mozzie.






Jieying managed to capture this mother's attention.

HuYi using his charm to explain the project.


Wayne patiently explaining to this aunty about the use of garlic.

Alina eagerly explaining to these two girls the need to save the earth through the use of natural organic products.

JiaXin, ever ready to do her part to save the environment.


YangJie doing his best to speak in Hokkien to this aunty about Shoo Mozzie.

This is a special lady standing next to Mrs Ess. She grew up in Johore and she remembered how the Malays would use the lemon grass to rub all over their body to prevent mosquito from biting them.

Mrs Ess is glad that the grandmother's tale about how lemon grass is a natural insect repellent is confirmed by this grandmother who has twenty children.

Nature Insect Repellent

Learning from a NGO called Journey to Forever, the YEGs@Mayflower decided to explore the possibility of using local herbs and plants as insect repellent

The reasons are

a. It is sustainable: made entirely from locally available renewable resources

b. It is empowering: processed entirely by the end-user as needed

c. It is eco-friendly: won't boil the planet or blow a hole in the sky.


PandanThe first plant we explored was the Pandan leave.



Did you know that Pandan leave is an effective repellent?

Two researchers from NTU did a research using Pandan Leaves (Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb.) as a natural cockroach repellent.

It was observed that taxi drivers in Singapore and Malaysia kept bunches of pandan leaves (Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb.) in their taxis to ward off cockroaches.

Many families (including the Esshold) also use Pandan leaves as a natural cockroach repellent. In addition, it also makes the kitchen smell nice and clean.


For those who are interested, you may go to this website to see the researcher's report.

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/eee/urop/congress2003/Proceedings/abstract/NUS_FoS/TDP%20USP/Li%20Jingmei.pdf


Lemon Grass



Lemon grass contains citronella oil, a safe and natural insect repellent that's just as effective as the commercial chemical products, especially when it's fresh.

You can rub the long, grassy leaves on the skin, but the stalk worked even better. Take one stalk of fresh lemon grass and peel off the outer leaves, snap off the grass blades behind the swollen stem at the base.

Bend the stem between your fingers, loosening it, then rub it vigorously between your palms so that it fractures into a kind of fibrous juicy mass, and rub this mess over all exposed skin, covering thoroughly at least once. Pleasant on the skin and the effect lasts about 4-5 hours.




According to the CRC Ethnobotany Desk Reference by Tim Johnson, lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) is traditionally used in various parts of the world as an antiseptic, antispasmodic, carminative, cyanogenetic, dentrifice, diaphoretic, diuretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, pectoral, preventative (cold), stimulant, sudorific, and tonic, used to treat common cold, consumption, cough, depurative, dyspepsia, elephantiasis, fever, flu, gingivitis, headache, hypertension, insecticide, leprosy, malaria, mouth sores, neuritis, pneumonia, pyorrhea, rheumatism, sprains, and toothache.

The Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Index at the Purdue Guide to Medicinal and Aromatic Plants has a lot of information on lemon grass, also listing it as an insect repellent and a medicinal plant, and says it's used in food and confections, in perfumes and cosmetics, soaps and creams, as a flavouring in soft drinks, and as a mask for industrial bad smells.



The information above is obtained from this blog:

http://journeytoforever.org/edu_homer.html






Turmeric
Turmeric (yellow powder or yellow ginger) can be found in most kitchen in Singapore.

Turmeric has been used for many conditions in traditional medicine in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Turmeric has been applied to insect stings and to alleviate itching.






There are many uses of turmeric and you can go to the website below to check out the information.
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/turmeric-000277.htm



Garlic




Garlic, a common staple found in kitchens in Singapore, has been considered a special food.

Garlic has a natural sulfur which repels insects, including mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. Spraying garlic concentrates as a mosquito repellent is not something new. Farmers and master gardeners have been doing it for many generations.

According to some website, mosquitoes are soft-bodied insects so the garlic juice can be very toxic to them in increased concentrations.

The juice does not harm humans or pets or plants, but to mosquitoes it can be deadly.






The odor of it chases them out of the area and they stay away - for as long as they can detect the odor. While the odor of sprayed garlic juice becomes undetectable to humans within minutes, the mosquitoes will still detect it.




Mosquitoes have a very heightened olfactory sense - as high as 10,000 times better than humans. They can detect the garlic extract for much longer periods of time and will stay away from the sprayed area of garlic juice for up to a month and more.

Nature's Remedy