On Friday 25 October, it was our school's annual event of Grandparent's Day.  A great time by was had by all, in classes, and during tours of our school.  This included Sustainable Tours, Authors Tours and Living Room Tours.  Our students are proud to share their school environment with their visitors and to discuss their learning.

Living Room Specialist Group 2013 sharing their
knowledge and enthusiasm for their environment

Introduction to the Living Room

Explaining our energy efficient lighting

Look at the changes in the Secret Garden

Investigating our bike water pump

Explaining how we insulate and measure the concrete floor  sections

Our earth wall generates a lot of interest

Insulation in the walls can be viewed through the wall.

Previous projects continue to be care for by our students.

This was our first Vision Map made in 1998

During Term 3 the Year 3 and 4 Sustainable Elective learnt about how to make a new Sustainable Vision Map of our whole school.  This map shows the areas of the school environment that the students would like to change and areas that they enjoy. Our first vision map was made in 1998 and that’s how we got the fantastic Cultural Gardens and our wormeries for food scraps.  The second vision map was made in 2007 with many more great student ideas on it.  Most of these ideas have been completed, so we decided it was time for a new map. We are all really proud of the new Sustainable Vision Map.  It is really important when we are an Enviroschool that all the students and the community get a chance to discuss and share their ideas for this map. Our new map will be in the school foyer of the office for our community to look at.  If you have any new ideas you would like to add, please record them on sticky notes and put them on our new ideas page.

Thank you from the Year 3 and 4 Sustainable Elective

We practised mapping our school

We kept a diary of our learning and creative ideas

Students have always enjoyed places to hide.

It is important to us that we look after older projects too

Our Second Vision Map made in 2007

We explored our favourite places

Our study books showed our understanding

We learnt mapping skills and developed icons

Special Places Icon

Overused Areas Icon

Sharing with our families.

Getting feedback from our families

All the student's emailed ideas about special places
areas they like, underused areas, overused areas
and areas for change.  We will have a lot more student planned sustainable projects coming up

Our New Sustainable Vision Map

The students in the Term 3, Year 5/6 Sustainable Elective developed their learning and understandings about our fascinating NZ native eels.  They explored the features of the long fin and short fin eel, researched their vulnerability in their current habitats and discovered the traditional Maori catching techniques and importance of eels in their diet.  Students showed amazement that female long fin eels only breed once in their life at approximately 100 year old and they have to travel all the way to Tonga to do this. 

Along side this learning, students explored our school's stream health and went on a trip to see eels in their natural habitat.  Their technology challenge was to design a traditional hinaki, test it and make recommendations for design alterations.

At the end of the study, they reflected on their learning with their families demonstrating the true understanding of eels and developed games that share this knowledge and encourage others to care for and be aware of their plight.  These students are now wonderful ambassadors for our native eels.

CONGRATULATIONS to all our students who have been, and continue to be involved in the development of Our Community Table.  The students put together an over view on this project as a powerpoint presentation. This was entered in the Mother Earth Reward competition.  We were selected as one of 9 finalists.

ALL the finalists are up on the Mother Earth Reward site www.motherearthreward.co.nz

Please take the time to look at our entry and the other great finalists and then if you would like to vote for us, that would be fantastic!

Please encourage friends and members of our school community to vote for us.  We could win $500 to put back into our sustainable projects and this will be additional if we are one of the lucky winners of the main prizes! 

Last week, at Community Table day, we had the most donations from our community to date, and we harvested our fist celery from our school gardens to put on the table.

Congratulations to the students in the Year 5/6 Sustainable Elective from Term 2, 2013.  Their Community Table has been, and continues to be a great success.  After months of planning, designing and thinking,  they have developed a successful way for our school and families to share our excess fruit and vegetables.  Our table is out in the Cultural Garden area every Thursday morning at 8.30am. The students have a roster for set up and standing by the table to talk to people as they come and donate, or take foods.  We put food on it that is extra in our school gardens.  We have contributed a lot of lemons and also spinach plants we have grown at school.  Our community have added to this table too, donating limes, oranges, apples, herbs and mandarins.  Any one can select what they would like to use at home or eat at school.  We get many comments from our community about what a great idea this is.  Showing Aroha this way gives us a great feeling and parents and grandparents who visit keep telling us how great this project is. Our motto is 'You can give to us and we can give to others. It's for a sustainable cause'.

Every Tuesday lunchtime, students in the Native Tree and Seeds group meet together to continue the great work in our gully restoration and other plantings in our school.  Winter and early Spring are wonderful times for planting native trees.  With our new steps in the gully, access has been greatly improved. The students pot up smaller native plants in the nursery area, plant them in the gully once they are big enough and plant other areas of the school that need a touch of green.  Last week, they planted five Titoki trees in the pool area to provide shade during the swimming months.