Message from the Educator

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?

Huge congratulations to Manchester Street School on becoming a Green Gold Enviroschool

After 12 years of being on their Enviroschool journey, Manchester Street School held their Green Gold sharing and decision making day. The students, staff and community are immensely proud of their journey so far. They are working hard to maintain and develop a vibrant and healthy school environment, and know they can continue to effect change for a sustainable community. Check out this article written by the National Enviroschools team who went along to learn more about what makes the school's Enviroschools journey unique to them. 

Puddleducks’ Montessori Wetlands Restoration Project

One of our objectives at Puddleducks’ Montessori, aligned to our philosophy of kaitiakitanga, is connecting more with our natural surroundings as we grow and learn together on our Enviroschools journey.  Behind our preschool we are fortunate to have a small wetland area which we identified in 2018 as a long-term project to restore, rejuvenate and expand.

With the support of a community grant awarded by Horizons in 2018, the first phase of the project has been completed, with the removal of stock, the creation of the walking track and the recent community planting day in July 2019.  We had the perfect weather for our riparian planting day and everyone worked together planting 200 native plants. What a fantastic display of ‘mahitahi’!

The next phase of the project is erecting fences so tamariki can access the natural area safely with kaiako, learn more about the wetlands, and observe the biodiversity of the wetland area flourish.  We will also be planting more natives, and making ‘bug hotels’ for our invertebrate friends.  This project enables us to work from a whole centre approach as we continue to focus on creating a sustainable environment and community. 

Mauri ora!

Michelle Waudby, Centre Leader

School wide trapping programme kicks off at Hunterville School

After some learning about our animal pests, their effect on our native wildlife, and putting out tracking tunnels to see what pests they have, Hunterville School decided that they wanted to do their bit towards the Predator Free 2050 initiative, and set up their own school wide trapping programme. After successfully applying for a Horizons community grant to buy some traps, I went along to help them select places to put their traps, and support them in setting up their monitoring project.

Walking the Pettifer Loop at Tōtara Reserve with Awahou School

Awahou School is just down the road from our only regional park, Tōtara Reserve. The senior students have been learning about their environment, but wanted to extend this to learn more about their local community which includes Tōtara Reserve. Between the rain showers, August was an ideal time to walk the Pettifer Loop, and do some learning as they walked. The students had previously explored what animal pests lived in the school grounds but they were keen to see if the same pests would be found in the bush too. I put out some tracking tunnels a few days previously so the students could check them as we started our walk. Well, there were certainly lots of rats with 100 per cent of our tracking tunnels containing rat prints. As we continued walking along the track, the next activity was a funky fungi bingo hunt. How many types of fungi could they find as they walked? As you would expect, this turned into a race but the kids also started to get really adept at finding even the smallest mushrooms. They certainly didn’t expect to see so much on our short walk.

With the weather warming up, what next? The school are turning towards exploring the stream and doing some water quality monitoring. If the water is warm enough, they might even have a swim as the Pohangina River at Tōtara Reserve is a popular swim spot. 

Congratulations to Enviroschools who held holistic reflections this term

In addition to Manchester Street Schools' Green Gold reflection, more congratulations go to Gail’s Childcare and Orautoha School who both reflected to Bronze last term. It was great to see both Enviroschools share their day with their community who they work closely with on projects. For the reflection at Gail's, staff are moving towards being paper-free so decided to collect examples of their sustainability practices on small stones which they are going to make into a path. What a great idea!  

Tararua College launch as an Enviroschool with a planting event

To kick off their Enviroschools journey, Tararua College held an event where they planted natives and fruit trees as the kick start of a revitalisation of the College’s orchard and horticulture shed. Another new Enviroschool nearby, Pahiatua School, joined them for the event as many students from this school will go onto the College. Environmental education is planned to be incorporated into the junior curriculum to embed sustainability into their everyday practices. There is still funding available in the Tararua District so if you are a school wanting to know more about the Enviroschools programme, please contact me

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