ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

School students learn about bio-control

Students from Awahou School spent time with one of our biodiversity staff learning about the use of beetles to control the pest plant tradescantia, or ‘wandering willie’. This is a ground-covering weed that smothers small native seedlings, hindering their growth in native bush. The students helped collect and transfer some of the beetles from their nursery site near Massey University to a site at Tōtara Reserve, our only regional park, where tradescantia is spreading. The simply way to collect beetles in large numbers was to use a garden leaf vacuum. However the students were excited to get involved and collected several by hand as well, placing them in containers for transport. At the reserve, the students helped place the beetles in a small plant cloche on the forest floor, where they are able to acclimatise and settle into their new home before getting stuck into the tradescantia. The school regularly visits Tōtara Reserve to learn about what lives there so they were the ideal group to help monitor the progress of the tradescantia beetles as they munch on the weed.

Fish monitoring on the Tapuata Stream

Last year Dannevirke South School students started a project to regularly monitor the health of the Tapuata Stream which runs through their school grounds. Early last term, the students had seen a number of eels in the stream so asked our fish passage team if they could help them determine what species they were, and if there were any other fish species living in their section of the stream. So we set some nets overnight to see what we could catch. The students were stoked to see lots in the nets. We caught three eels – two longfin and one shortfin, six Upland bullies and one Common bully. What a great haul! The students discussed how they were going to look after them and perhaps feeding the eels to encourage them to stay around.

Seaweek 2021

Term 1 means Seaweek. This year over three days, six schools in Whanganui had the opportunity to spend the day at Kai Iwi Beach connecting with our seas. Educators from across Whanganui, including Horizons, ran a series of workshop rotations for students to explore the beach and estuary areas. Our staff ran activities by the Mowhanau stream looking at what lives at the crossover between freshwater and sea water. In one activity, one of our freshwater team talked about how migratory fish need access to both of these environments to complete their lifecycle.

ENVIROSCHOOLS

Fostering Future Scientists 

Green Gold Enviroschool Manchester Street School have numerous action projects happening around the school. They have now started to think about how they can take action in their community. Fresh water is a topic that really matters to the school so it was natural with the Mangakino (Makino) stream right on their doorstep that they should look at a water quality project. The school already has three enviro-groups so have now set up a fourth, the Waiora group, who will collect water quality data twice a term from three sites on the Mangakino stream as it flows through Feilding. Following a professional development session on water quality I ran for the staff, the project kicked off this term with the students learning how to complete the different water quality tests such as clarity, measuring pH, temperature and water flow, and looking for what macroinvertebrates live in the stream. Excitedly, on the second visit this term the students found a good sized īnanga.   

Forgotten Fauna Student Hui...... again!

In the last edition of Seedlings, we reported on our inaugural primary student enviro-leaders hui called Forgotten Fauna. We had such a great time and had really positive feedback from schools that with encouragement from our guest presenters from Wildlife Foxton Trust, Wildbase Recovery, and other Horizons biodiversity staff, we decided to run the hui again for other Enviroschools in region. So in April, nine primary Enviroschools from Tararua, Palmerston North City and Horowhenua came together at Horseshoe Bend Reserve, Tokomaru. Following the Enviroschools Action Learning Cycle, the students first spent time with our guest presenters learning about native fish, lizards and bats. After lunch students worked in groups to plan how they could share what they have learnt with their school community, and how they could learn more about, and take action on the forgotten fauna in their area.

RESOURCES