Sunday, October 30, 2016

Senior Enviro Fernz

Today the Enviro Fernz came together for their weekly meeting and noticed that the plant boxes round the field were overgrown with weeds. After a quarter of an hour the bucket was three quarters of the way full with different sizes, shapes and species of weeds. Some plant boxes had more weeds than others, one of them looked like it was weeded recently. Then we carried on to see the spiky,spiky grass outside Room 19 and 18. Fortunately one was in good care although the others looked they watered in years. Finally we went to see Mrs Masters and she identified what  could go the to the chickens. Year three will have the responsibility of these plant boxes for the
upcoming term.
By Naomi, Alex, Lucy & Eve






Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Trees For Survival

Room 32 is running the Trees for Survival programme this year. We had our planting day at Mataia Farm in Kaipara. 
We were lucky enough to have mostly fine weather and not to get too wet (unless it was voluntarily). We planted 750 Harakeke (flax) and Manuka. The reason for planting these trees is to stop erosion of farm land and create healthier water ways and homes for our kiwi and other native insects and animals that live at Mataia farm. 







Rubbish Collection

The senior and junior Enviro Fronds action groups have been busy picking up rubbish around the school grounds and in the gully. We found far too much rubbish! We all need to protect our school environment by bringing litterless lunches to school, or putting any rubbish we do have into the correct room or taking it home - not leaving it on the ground! And if you do see some rubbish on the ground, please pick it up!!!











Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Year 6 1+ a Day - Blog Post Written by Room 28 Students

File_000.jpeg
( Rubbish found at Okahu Bay during Waterwise)
File_001.jpeg
(Plastic found at Okahu bay during Waterise)
Waterwise and 1+ A Day
For 1+ A Day the year sixes have been opening workshops in each of our classrooms, these include Blogging, Posters, Songs/Raps and Interviews to promote it around New Zealand and the world!
We are also carrying on the good work by picking up litter at Waterwise each Friday, this helps clean up the beach so therefore making a safer environment for the marine life at Okahu bay. We also want to make it nicer for tourists and visitors trying to enjoy the beach.
The reason we started 1+ A Day was because Verran Road School did a presentation about 1+ A Day. They were inspired by a video about turtles dying because of the plastic. The  plastic things that hold the 6 pack of beer cans can get into the ocean, and turtles can swim half through the holes. Then they get stuck in the holes and the thing stays on them for the rest of their lives!  “Let's make this beach great again” Written by Room 28 Students

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Oxfam Hot Chocolate Break

On Tuesday, Meadowbank School hosted an Oxfam Fair Trade Hot Chocolate Break, organised by the Enviro Fernz leaders. Children received a fair trade hot chocolate, a fair trade banana and a piece of baking in exchange for a gold coin donation.
We were raising money to donate to people living in poverty in Australasia.
As a school we raised a total of $777.80 profit, smashing our goal of $600! Here are some photos of the junior side event:

                                     

                                              

                                                














Sunday, May 15, 2016

Oxfam Hot Chocolate Break 2016

The Envirofernz are hosting an exciting event on Tuesday the 24th May. Search the link for more details!

https://www.oxfamsmorningtea.org.nz/omt14/meadowbank-school-hot-chocolate-break

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Swan Plants

Last term, the junior enviro club worked on maintaining the swan plants. We put bags on the seed pods to collect the seeds and later plant them, we took caterpillars to the caterpillar hospital in the butterfly meadow and we set a monarch butterfly free that had hatched from it's chrysalis in the 'hospital'. The purpose of the butterfly hospital is to protect caterpillars from wasps. Look at the fun we had fun while looking after our environment!







Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Enviro Fernz Gully Adventure

The Year 2 Enviro Fernz and a few seniors made a great discovery while on a Gully Mission... PINECONES. We wondered what we could do with these and someone had the great idea of collecting them off the Gully floor and filling our pockets so that we could take them to the Garden to Table teacher to see if they could be of any use. It just happened to be that Bob was cranking up the Pizza Oven for that days lesson and was running low on wood. So we went back into the Gully and filled sacks, with pinecones and small branches from the big Redwood Tree that lives there.

Year 1 - Tidy Kiwis

The Year 1s at Meadowbank are in charge of the tidy kiwi buckets. A group of children use the buckets and tongs to pick up rubbish and place them in the correct rubbish bins. After studying knowing what rubbish goes in what bin, i.e.  for the worms, and recycling. We hope to keep the junior side as litterless as possible. We will keep this going for the rest of the year.

Photo to come!

Junior Enviro Fronds Action Group

Junior students have been involved in collecting seeds from the school swan plants. This involves putting bags over the seed pods of the swan plants, and waiting for them to dry. Once these have dried students empty the bags and place them on another seed pod. We are going to plant these seeds so we can increase our swan plant population in school.

We have also been trying to spot caterpillars on the swan plants. This year there doesn't appear to be as many, but we are finding lots of wasps. When we make a discovery we transport the caterpillar to our Butterfly Hospital in the Butterfly Meadow on the Senior Campus. Here the caterpillars are safe from wasps and have lots of swan plants to munch on before they turn into a chrysalis and then into a beautiful Monarch Butterfly.

Follow this link to see the process and learn how you can do this at home.


Inline image 1

Year 4's Garden to Table Program

In Term 1 the Year 4's have started their journey at the Garden to Table classroom.

We have been learning a range of new skills to be able to plant, grow, harvest, prepare and share within our classes and the wider school community.

We have learnt a lot about the equipment we need to use in the garden and which tool is best for particular jobs, like the hand fork for weeding.

We have enjoyed spending time in the garden and getting familiar with the different gardens around our school, sampling produce from the garden and discussing what we could plant in the future.

Our parents and grandparents have been supportive by coming into school and assisting us in our learning. 

Here are a few pictures of our journey so far.






Year 1's Gully Walk

Year 1 went for a walk through the gully to look at the Pou (Maori guardians) and to have a look at the Butterfly Meadow. They are excited about taking responsibility for maintaining the Butterfly Meadow this year!



Enviro Leaders' Trip to Grey Lynn Kindy

Earlier this term, some of the Enviro Leaders attended an enviro cluster meeting at Grey Lynn Kindy. Grey Lynn Kindy are an enviro focussed learning centre. They have worm farms, rabbits, a fruit dehydrating machine, swan plants, compost bins and more. They make tea using dried herbs and fruits from their gardens and they make ornaments for the garden using recycled materials. Their projects and inquiries are driven by the children's interests.
Their gardens are sustained over the school holidays by a community system that is in place - one family starts with the key for a week and they water the plants, feed the rabbits, distribute the worm tea and harvest any fruit to take home and eat! That family then passes the key on to the next family.
It was amazing to see what another learning centre is doing for enviro and we hope to implement some of their ideas into our enviro program at Meadowbank!