Message from the Educator

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?

Students look at biocontrol beetles for thistles

Students from Enviroschools Tokirima and Matiere Schools near Taumarunui had an exciting trip out to a local farm to look at the biological control beetle for Californian thistle, the green thistle beetle. Biological control agents are organism which are used to control another organism. In recent years, certain insects have been found to eat or damage particular species of plant. These insects are often bred and released to help control a particular weed problem. Thistles are a huge problem for farmers as this weed, which is not eaten by cattle nor sheep, smother the pasture leaving it un-grazable. Many of these students live on farms so can see first-hand the impact thistles have. Horizons Biosecurity Officer, Dave Alker, took students to a site where he collects the green thistle beetle to create new populations on other farms to tackle the infestation. It was an awesome sight watching students looking for green beetles, on a green plant, in green field! Once they got their eye in, students were very adept at locating and collecting the adult beetles which they released on to farms near their respective schools. They’ll be monitoring the progress of their beetle releases.

Animal tracking and trapping activities

Exploring what lives in the school grounds, whether it is native or introduced, is a great place to start in connecting your students with their environment. Lots of schools have begun to investigate pest animal tracking and trapping. Schools can access either one or two sessions. The first session explores animal pests, and the methods you can use to identify types of pests in your environment using tracking tunnels and chew cards. The second session, approximately one week later, looks at the results of the tracking tunnels and/or chew cards that had been baited and put out in the school grounds. Then we look at the types of traps used to humanely dispatch pests. Schools can also learn how to set up their own tracking and trapping programme should you so wish to do so. If you are keen to add this to other activities which you may be doing in your school grounds, then contact me.

Waiora stream studies happening across the region

Term 1 was certainly stream study season with 26 studies taking place across the region. I spent a beautiful couple of days in Taumarunui with Turaki Primary School who were sampling four different local streams, all of which are part of the Whanganui River Catchment. It is great to be able visit new areas of our beautiful region. A different class visited a different stream over the two days. They collected the same information, and then the classes compared their results back at the school.

Our secondary schools have also begun to look at using water quality studies in their NCEA assessments, borrowing the Waiora kits to assist in their data collection. I have also begun to work with some schools to incorporate regular stream quality testing with different year groups to create a long term monitoring project for specific streams. This is helping to build up a bigger picture of stream health in some of our catchments, and can lead into other activities such as restoration planting.

Teacher professional development hui

Teachers from Enviroschools in the early childhood education (ECE) and secondary school sectors had the opportunity attend professional development hui this term. Both of these opportunities were supported by covering the costs of teacher release from their regular roles. 

The national secondary hui, held in Wellington, looked at resources to implement a cross curricular project-based learning framework. This approach has helped secondary Enviroschools to embed the Enviroschools kaupapa into the curriculum, engage the community and local industry with schools, and helped to create multi-subject projects and assessments which eases time efficiencies.

The early childhood specific hui was held in Palmerston North and was attended by 20 teachers from 16 centres. This event focussed on ‘Exploring our Space’ with activities suitable for tamariki on birds, bugs and biodiversity. Teachers had a tour around the Wildbase Recovery Centre, hunted for invertebrates in native bush, and visited Hokowhitu Kindergarten where they made weta motels and window art.    

RESOURCES AND IDEAS