A group of Carlisle school children have created a powerful piece of art using recycled materials to highlight the impact that waste has on the ocean. 

Pupils at St Bede's Catholic Primary School spent last week learning all about recycling with the student council organising school-wide activities such as litter picking and waste-free lunches to drive home all that they had discovered.

As well as this, they made a large piece of art work in collaboration with local artist Sharon MacKay-Cooper which was inspired by photos they had seen of sea creatures eating plastic. 

Their hope was that it would encourage everyone in the school to think about the environment and to recycle.

Claire Noble, council lead, said: "The children were telling Sharon what they'd been learning throughout the week, and the thing that hit them the hardest was the fact that the plastic was ending up in our oceans, and what is that doing to the sea life.

"That was the most impactful statement and the piece of research that they found out that week, and Sharon led them down, well, what about creating some sea creatures?"

The 12 members of the student council researched climate change, recycling, littering, and where plastic ends up after it has been thrown away. 

They performed an assembly where they shared all that they had learned throughout the week, but the entire school was involved in the week-long theme.

The impact of plastic pollution is a theme that has stuck with them with one member of the student council describing it as 'depressing' and another spoke about how discovering just how many recyclable materials go into the bin everyday has stuck with him. 

One of the pupils said: "I found it quite depressing. It's a bit hard to find out that billions of fish are dying every day just because of what we throw away."

All of the school's pupils were asked to bring in a piece of plastic from home to turn into something useful and inventive, and they also had waste-free lunches where they'd receive a sticker for not throwing anything away.

It was a successful week with the school children eager to continue putting into practice all that they learned.