Message from the Educator

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?

Challenge Day 2018

Back in October, we hosted the third annual Challenge Day at Totara Reserve. This was planned to coincide with Conservation Week (which now seems a long time ago). The event followed the same amazing-race style as in previous years, with a variety of different activities themed around sustainability. It was the ideal opportunity to showcase Totara Reserve and the work Horizons Regional Council does for the environment. Eight teams competed on the day from schools spread across Palmerston North, Manawatū, and Tararua. The students navigated as many stations and completed as many activities as possible to earn points. The event requires not only sustainability knowledge and skills, but also strategic thinking and planning. There were 14 stations in total with activities including pest plant identification and management match-up, a vegetation plot survey, the emergency response game ‘Are You a Surviva?’, identification of native plants, forest and freshwater invertebrates and pest animal identification from tracking tunnel ink prints.

The winning teams were: 1st place – Hiwinui School; 2nd place – Carncot Independent School; 3rd place – Whakarongo School. No team left the event empty handed, with each being given a native tree seedling to gift to their school. Hiwinui School have used their prize money purchasing a vegetable garden for the juniors students. The juniors had to liaise with the winning team and ask if they could use the money for a junior gardens as the seniors already have their own gardens.

Water Quality Teacher Professional Development 

We had an exciting opportunity to provide professional development to a group of geography teachers from Palmerston North Boys High School and Awatapu College who are teaching Year 13 students. They were looking at setting up projects focussing on changes in water quality throughout a river catchment.

The aim of the session was to provide them with some background knowledge and skills about water quality issues, learn about the types of simple tests which can be done to assess water quality and to grasp how the equipment, which can be borrowed from Horizons, works. We also provided advice for their own projects, and protocols for collecting data to ensure scientific rigor.    

#SwimInOurRegion – Horizons Swimability Campaign

Horizons' summer swim spot monitoring programme is underway again to help inform you about potential health risks and highlight the Region’s fantastic recreational sites. The annual programme runs from 1 November to the end of April, testing water health at over 80 sites across the Region. Weekly samples from each site are sent to an independent accredited lab for testing. Results are received within 48 hours and are updated weekly on Horizons' dedicated 'Safe Swim Spots’ webpage. There, an interactive map shows each of the swim spots marked by a red, amber or green location maker to indicate that week’s results.

Horizons' swim spot campaign includes the competition '#SwimInOurRegion', which encourages the public to post a photo of them enjoying their favourite swim spot along with the hashtag #swiminourregion and the site's location tagged, to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Entries are automatically in the draw to win a $1500 water related adventure package. Last year’s winner was Di Simpson from Halcombe School who took her class white water rafting down the Rangitikei River.

Winners of the ‘Taking Action in Waste’ Film Competition

Schools and early childhood centres in the Manawatū District that entered the ‘Taking Action in Reducing Waste’ short film competition were celebrated at a prizegiving event. Horizons Enviroschools Manawatū facilitator Rowena Brown, along with Manawatu District Council solid waste and recycling officer David McMillan, proposed the film competition as a way to highlight issues surrounding waste in both urban and rural settings. The competition was open to all early childhood centres, primary, intermediate and high schools in the wider Manawatū district.

The overall award winner was Manchester Street School for their short film ‘Paper Recycling’.

Certificates and $100 cheques were also presented to Sanson School Juniors for their ‘Rubbish: A Journey Through Time’ entry in the What Is Waste? category; Sanson School Seniors for their ‘Food Waste’ film in the Zero Waste Design category; and Manchester Street School for their film ‘Worms - The Cycle of Food Scraps’ in the Zero Waste Project category.

Waste minimisation practices in schools, centres and the community are one of the core areas within the Enviroschools programme. It is hoped their films show other schools how environmental initiatives are easy to implement and help to get children thinking about the themes while creating life-long learning experiences.

In addition to the screening of all competition entries, the evening included waste information displays from Enviroschools, Zero Waste, Reusable Nappies, and what Manawatu District Council are doing to reduce waste going to landfill.

Manchester Street School’s winning film can be viewed here.

Spotlight On: The Environmental Educator

We regularly have questions from the public asking what the Educator does. So this ‘spotlight on’ section is all about the role of the Environmental Educator. ​

We provide environmental educational support to schools on a wide range of topics, plus field trips and professional development opportunities for teachers. Here are a few areas in which we are able to help. Go to our website to read more information on each theme. 

• Biodiversity
• Water
• Animal Pest
• Curriculum Development
• Teacher Professional Development 
• Enviroschools

A big thank you to all our funding partners for their on-going support of the Enviroschools programme. They are enabling empowered youth and sustainable, on-going action that involves the wider community.

Funding partners in our Region are Whanganui, Manawatu, Tararua, Rangitikei and Ruapehu District Councils, Palmerston North City Council and Ruahine Kindergarten Association.

Enviroschools Census 2018

We'd like to say a big thank you to those of you who completed the National Enviroschools Census last term. We have had a 71 percent return rate which is comparable to the national rate. We hope you found the exercise valuable, I know the Facilitators have. The results will be available in March, which we will of course share with you all.

Planting Kumara Workshop - Māori Tikanga and Practice

The Enviroschools Facilitator for Whanganui and Rangitikei, Ron Fisher, held two workshops this year on the practice and Māori tikanga of laying kumara beds. These were led by Senior Professor of Horticulture at Massey University, Nick Roskruge. Attendees learnt the process of growing kumara starting with how to sprout kumara, to get seedlings ready for planting. Materials were provided for participants to take away and begin the process themselves. A second workshop held in Term 4 focussed on the planting of the kumara seedlings. Teachers learnt how to bed whole kumara in a mix of gravel, horse manure, compost, bark or sand, keep them moist, put them in a warm place, and watch them sprout. The long sprouts, called tipu, are divided into pieces each with two or three leaves, for planting.

For more information on kumara growing see the national Māori Vegetable Growers Collective website.

IDEAS

Seaweek 3 - 11 March 2018

The month of March means Seaweek which is New Zealand’s annual national week which focuses on learning about the sea. It’s about exciting and inspiring all New Zealanders to renew their connections with the sea! It’s a time for all of us to get to know our ocean, its habitats, characteristics and inhabitants better.

Horizons is running a couple of activities to celebrate Seaweek 2018. The first is a social media photo competition, starting on Thursday 16 February until Monday 19 March. Visit your favourite beach and collect all the rubbish you find. Take a selfie with your rubbish collection, or of an unusual piece of rubbish you found. Upload it Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the #seaweekselfie and tag the beach location, for the chance to win a beach themed prize pack. Our second event is a community clean up at Foxton Beach on Saturday 3 March. You can find all the details for this one on our Facebook event.  

If you are looking for an awesome topic to engage your students, then look no further. When you think of Seaweek perhaps you disregard this as something to explore further, as you think that you need to take your students to the beach. In an ideal world, this would be great. However, there are lots of activities relating to the marine environment which you can do in the classroom. Check out Seaweek for more information and a list of events near you. Here are just a few resources you could use.

• NZ Marine Studies Centre has so many resources from the classroom to the beach and on a wide range of topics.
• DOC - Exploring your Marine Environment from DOC’s ‘in’ the environment series for activities to do at the beach.
• Life's a Beach provides learning activities about the beach environment - the sea, beach, sand dunes, dune vegetation, and reserve areas.
• Young Ocean Explorers – Love our Ocean aim's to inspire children to love our ocean through entertaining education. The interactive website uses a blend of fun storytelling, fascinating facts and incredible images, all told through a teenager’s eyes.
• The Blue Project is a free digital resource that will extend the reach of marine education to classrooms around the country, so that students from Kaitaia to Bluff can experience the wonder of what lies beneath the ocean. The website uses 360-degree video to bring the marine environment to life, transporting students from their classrooms to the wonder of Kelly Tarlton's underwater experience.
• Māui's Dolphin: An Inquiry to Action is a resource which guides teachers through an inquiry learning approach and is targeted for levels 2-4 of the New Zealand curriculum. It is packed with ideas for activities, resources and planning support.