...so long as they can write the hymnbooks

I took Wednesday afternoon off to attend a do at my daughter's primary school. They had their own World of Wearable Arts show.

For those outside of NZ, the WoW Festival happens annually in Wellington (it used to be in Nelson) and shows of just incredible design skills. I've attended a few times, and it's awesome.

There's sometimes an underlying message in the costumes, but often they're just fun.

The school went for themes for their costumes, but things varied by classroom.

The first classroom had students working in pairs or trios; one or two would read off a description of the work while the other modelled it.

The first classroom had:

1. An orange, telling us to make healthy food cheaper;
2. A carrot, telling us to make healthy food cheaper;
3. A broken television, telling us that we have too much screen time;
4. A medley of items telling us how special the sea is and that plastic straws are bad;
5. A medley of items telling us that electric cars are important;
6. An ambulance telling us about allergies, and that there should be more free ambulances;
7. A medley of items telling us that fast food is bad;
8. A medley of items telling us that littering is bad and recycling is good and that we should stop having more roads so we can save the environment;
9. A medley of items reminding us of the need to stop ocean pollution, perhaps by having more rubbish bins near the beach;
10. A medley of items reminding us of the problems of plastic pollution in the ocean, and that we need more recycling.

The second classroom had a very different theme and take. Students again were in trios, with the first student costumed as a material, and the next two costumed as things that come from those materials. The students had some rhyming verse about what they each were - it was nicely done. 

These were:

1. A tree, followed by wooden items, and by money because money makes people happy (though I'm pretty sure NZ money is made from plastic);
2. A tree, followed by an eraser, and wooden items;
3. A grapevine, followed by some grapes, and by some wine!
4. A gold mine, followed by a gold nugget and a gold weight;
5. A sheep, followed by some wool and by a jumper;
6. A bird, followed by a feather and then by a feather rug;
7. A gold nugget, followed by a gold bar, and then by some jewellery; 
8. A chicken, followed by an egg, and then by a cupcake.

The third classroom - a combined large classroom - had costumes themed around the topic of global warming. 

And here's what they had (often items attached to shirts, hats and masks representing these things), with this being as verbatim a summary as I can provide from the descriptions read by the students

1. A costume celebrating walking to school to reduce emissions;
2. An electric car;
3. An electric car and icebergs;
4. A lightning bolt hero for electric cars;
5. Melting ice and polar bears
6. Solar panels and wind;
7. Thunder and lightning because thunder and lightning cause hurricanes and you should buy an electric car;
8. A fridge (very well constructed) representing the problems facing the ozone layer and you should stop burning fossil fuels to save the ozone layer;
9. Don't use CFCs to save the ozone layer;
10. Deforestation: a superhero reminding us that deforestation hurts the ozone layer;
11. Deforestation: animals harmed by it;
12. A tree reminding us that deforestation is bad;
13. A bird encouraging us to use Forest Stewardship Council endorsed products
14. Replant trees!
15. Landfills are bad: garbage trucks
16. Landfills are bad: reuse plastics or don't use them at all
17. Plastic pollution is bad: reuse plastics and use fabric bags;
18. Plastic is bad; bamboo is good;
19. Reuse plastic or use less plastic;
20. Reuse plastic or use less plastic;
21. A bird reminding us that fabric bags are better than plastic bags;
22. Rising sea levels and melting ice caps;
23. Rising sea levels are bad, turn down your thermostat to use less energy;
24. A monster representing rising sea levels (very well acted).

My daughter had the Forest Stewardship Council costume - at least that recommendation is pretty sensible, and she hadn't asked my advice on it.

I do wish someone had had a dollar-sign costume in praise of carbon pricing.