Enviroschools Marlborough, Author at Enviroschools Marlborough

December 15, 2018

Busy bees at Witherlea

Students at Witherlea School have been busy taking action to reduce their lunch waste. After doing some work around waste and finding out that most people throw away up to 45 kg of plastic each year, Witherlea students wanted to do something to help. They decided to begin their battle against plastic by introducing beeswax wraps to replace cling film in school lunchboxes. Their aim is for each student in the school to make their own beeswax wrap, using MDC's beeswax wrap kit, locally-sourced beeswax, and cotton fabric. So far, 80 children have made their own wrap, and the rest of the school will follow suit in Term 1 next year. The students love...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

December 4, 2018

Enviroschools stories

Community effort to recycle soft plastic

An exciting new collaboration between Riverlands School and local business Wineworks has led to the school establishing its own soft plastic recycling programme. Concerned that soft plastic wrappings commonly found in school lunchboxes weren’t able to be recycled along with the rest of the school’s plastics, students Sophie and Maia investigated possible options for dealing with this waste. A connection with nearby business Wineworks, via a school parent, led to discussions between the students and Wineworks staff. Wineworks recycle their own soft plastic, and decided to help, by adding soft plastics from Riverlands School to their programme. The students visited Wineworks to learn about how the plastic is recycled, and Wineworks provided the school...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

November 8, 2018

Enviroschools stories General

MGC achieve Enviroschools Silver

Making wax wraps, visiting and sharing ideas with Nelson College for Girls, developing an upcycling shop, and presenting a whole year's class work from an Environmental Sustainability Course to community representatives, has helped Marlborough Girls' College successfully reflect at the Enviroschools Silver level. This is an impressive achievement for a larger secondary school and we congratulate the students and staff who have supported them, in particular lead teacher Melynda Bentley, who ran the Environmental Sustainability Course for the first time this year. Community representatives who supported the students taking the course were highly impressed with the girls' commitment and passion. Mayor Leggett, who presented the Silver certificate at the MGC Senior prize giving to Holly...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

September 28, 2018

Enviroschools stories

Caretakers get together

This year the team from Waikawa Bay School hosted the annual caretakers get together - with a surprise! The school had arranged for the caretakers to travel by boat to see the Kaipupu Point trapping programme. Rachel Russell from Kaipupu Wildlife Sanctuary gave a bit of background about the project, and then the caretakers walked up the hill to see a variety of traps and the spectacular view. Waikawa Bay School is part of the Picton Dawn Chorus predator trapping programme, and wanted to show other schools why they were involved in predator trapping. We returned to the school for a delicious lunch and then the students proudly showed off their trap line that runs...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

September 27, 2018

Enviroschools stories

Bohally Students Step Up

A confident group of Bohally students helped to run a workshop for teachers at Momorangi Bay during Conservation Week. With support from their teacher Phill Johnson, as well as MDC, DOC, and Richard de Hamel (University of Otago's Marine Studies Centre), this group trained and then ran a number of hands-on science and nature activities at the workshop. Their job was to help the teachers explore and experience DOC's education kits, for use in forest, stream, and seashore settings. These kits are available for schools that are camping or day-tripping in this stunning spot. The weather did not co-operate on the day of the workshop, with everyone having to don raincoats to get out and experience the stream, forest and seashore activities...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

September 3, 2018

Enviroschools stories

Silver for Riverlands School

A big congratulations to Riverlands School for successfully reflecting at Enviroschools Silver. Riverlands School was one of the first schools to join the Enviroschools programme 12 years ago, and have continued to take special care of their environment ever since. With an active edible garden programme, students get the opportunity to learn about composting, growing seeds, and harvesting vegetables and fruits. Harvest Friday is a popular event at the school, and is celebrated with a market day. There are lots of produce, preserve, and craft stalls, along with treats made from fruit and vegetables grown at school. Planter boxes and bug house projects are helping students to learn about the smaller things that live in our world. Not...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

Author: Enviroschools Marlborough