May 1, 2018
Earth Day Celebrations at Riverlands School
At the end of last term, Riverlands School got the whole school involved in celebrating Earth Day 2018!
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- Reading ‘The Lorax’
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- Colouring!
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- Collage
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- Kahoot quiz
Author: Enviroschools Marlborough
April 30, 2018
Vote NOW to support Riverlands School!
Over the holidays, Riverlands School were lucky enough to receive the exciting news that they are one of three primary school finalists in the 'Resene Worthy Wall Campaign' for 2018. The mural art entry was put together by one of the school's amazing parents, Janelle Whippy, who is a talented artist. Janelle worked in conjunction with the school and the school's Enviro Group to develop a plan of suitable places for a mural and some key messages that they wanted to include. There were some amazing entries received this year by the organisers, so to make it through as a finalist has been a huge achievement. The winner of the competition is the school that gets the...
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April 4, 2018
Paper4Trees Update
Paper and cardboard recycling in Marlborough schools and kindergartens is going strong, and is benefitting our region in a number of ways. Through the Paper4Trees programme, 190 new native trees were earned in the 2016/2017 year, due to the recycling of 38 tonnes of paper and cardboard! These recycling efforts also saved over 300 m³ of landfill space, and prevented over 200 tonnes of CO2 from being produced in landfill. Since Marlborough joined in 2009, more than 1,300 trees have been earnt, through over 300 tonnes of paper and cardboard recycling. Ka mau te wehi, Marlborough! Marlborough District Council is continuing its support of this excellent programme this year, so make sure that your school or early childhood...
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March 25, 2018
Learning about litter & waste
Students at Blenheim School are learning all about rubbish and waste this term. Resource Recovery Centre After experiencing The Rubbish Trip and finding out how long some of the products and packaging that we use takes to break down, they joined us for a guided tour of Marlborough's Resource Recovery Centre. This was so they could see where their recycling goes once it leaves the kerbside, and what it gets made into. They also visited the reuse shop, the compost site, hazardous waste store and commercial sorting facility. They were surprised to discover that they were wearing recycled plastic drink bottles as fleeces and that our really nasty hazardous waste goes all the way to Europe to...
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March 23, 2018
Edible Gardens Update | Rapaura School
Edible gardens facilitator, Angela Wentworth, updates us on what was going on in the Rapaura School garden last term. 'Parts of the plant' salad To start the term, the children from Jellyman Room went on a discovery walk through the garden to look at what was growing; tasting pak choi flowers and picking celery and lettuce for the 'parts of the plant' salad they were going to make that afternoon. Before heading to the kitchen, they sowed some zucchini, pumpkin and corn, learning that growing your vegetables from seed is a lot cheaper than buying vegetables from the supermarket. Each of the ingredients of the salad came from a different part of a plant: the leaves of...
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February 28, 2018
Edible gardens update | Blenheim School
Tracy, Edible Gardens Facilitator at Blenheim School, updates us on a busy Term 4 in the garden. Our whenua (soil) needs just as much care as the plants we grow. The children started their term discussing soil. With pH testers in hand, they tested and compared the soils in each of their garden beds. They discovered different plants like different soil types and poor soils can be improved by adding organic matter or compost. Swapping testers for spades and trowels, the children prepared a bed for their summer corn crop, and spread mulch on some of garden beds in preparation for the judging of the Garden Marlborough Best School Garden Awards. To show the judges how...
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February 21, 2018
Talking Trash with The Rubbish Trip
Trash-talk has never been as inspiring as it was this week at ‘The Rubbish Trip’ sessions for Marlborough teachers and senior students. Hannah Blumhardt and Liam Prince were in town as part of their year-long journey around New Zealand, sharing the 'why' behind their decision to live without a rubbish bin, and tips and tricks to help us all explore what our next steps might be in reducing the waste in our schools, kindergartens, homes and lives. It was a cracking start to our Enviroschools Marlborough theme for 2018: EXPLORE! If you didn’t manage to get along, The Rubbish Trip website is a fantastic resource, sharing what Hannah and Liam have learnt and thought about during their trip,...
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February 14, 2018
Enviro-FUN at Spring Creek School
Students at Spring Creek School had a whole day of enviro-FUN, exploring how they could help their environment using their school values. They used loads of activities from 'Me in my Environment' in the Enviroschools Kit, which can be found starting at Page 69 if you would like to try any of these at your school. Here are some of the things that they got up to: They built bird's nests using materials found from the school grounds, giving them an appreciation for their school's natural environment, and an understanding of what amazing engineers birds are! (The one pictured here was built by a bird, not a student!) They wrote recipes for a healthy school environment. Flowers,...
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February 7, 2018
New Welcome at Picton School
Students at Picton School have been working together to design an amazing new waharoa for their school entrance: "Te Waharoa o Waitohi Kura". They have learnt about ecological building practices, and have put a huge amount of thought into how Picton School students identify themselves, what symbolises their place, and what their new waharoa might look like.
November 28, 2017
So many students studying streams!
Students from Riverlands School and Witherlea School have been making the most of the summery weather, by getting out of the classroom and into the river. Year 6 students from Riverlands School investigated the health of the Taylor River upstream of the High Street bridge. Their measurements of water temperature, clarity, and flow, and their samples of the community of insects and other creepy-crawlies living there, suggested that the river was 'moderately healthy'. They were excited to find upland bullies and some little trout living amongst the aquatic plants, and they enjoyed watching caddisfly larvae poking their heads and legs out of their stony cases.
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- Students from Riverlands School busily identifying bugs
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- Stony-cased caddisfly larvae