AWARD-winning primary school students who took on the animal rights issue of free range versus caged eggs are disappointed by local consumers' preferences.
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The Year Five Gold class at Saint Gregory's Primary School has won the 2015 Wakakirri story dance award for Best Raising Awareness Story.
"We are hoping we will raise awareness in our town and hopefully change at least one person's mind about what type of eggs they buy," teacher Kristy Poole said.
"The judges at Wakakirri thought that the message for free range products was strong and heartfelt.
"We have since been informed by Coles that Queanbeyan had a high rate of caged egg purchases."
Local Coles store manager Matt Menser confirmed this.
"However, the major supermarkets are all moving away from caged eggs in favour of free range," Mr Menser said.
As a consequence, there has been a situation where some consumers have complained when they can only find free range eggs on the shelf, because caged egg are cheaper.
Mrs Poole said her class "find this statistic quite sad and feel that the Queanbeyan [consumers] are probably unaware of the impact they are having on the animals and what actually goes on behind their purchase".
In their seven minute Wakakirri story dance, a farmer's daughter is shocked at what she sees inside her father's caged egg farm.
She frees the birds and tries to get her dad to change his production method by imploring consumers at a supermarket to buy free range eggs.
The little girl is mostly ignored until one shopper, recognising heartache, changes her purchase.
St. Gregory's sends its whole year five to perform at Wakakirri, usually a group of 80-90 kids who have made the finals five of the last six years.
Wakakirri is Australia's largest performing arts event for schools, involving more than 20,000 students each year.
The cast of year five gold will perform at the Canberra Theatre on September 9.
Read more at www.wakakirri.com.