Riverlands School at Onamalutu
A large group of tamariki Yrs 1 -3 from Riverlands School headed to Onamalutu Reserve earlier this term as a celebration of their learning around sustainability and the living world. At school they had created bird feeders and houses, planted vegetables and cleaned up rubbish. The trip was a chance to see the beautiful areas they can create when nurturing the environment with the small actions they took at school.
The ngahere at Onamalutu is a remnant of podocarp forest once common in Wairau. It has beautiful mature kahikatea, matai and totara. The reserve was donated by a local sawmiller in 1901. This has preserved a small part of the natural ngahere that filled the valley.
Angela, from our Environmental Education team joined them. She took them on a journey of discovery in the amazing ngahere to uncover what insects lived there.
On the way into the ngahere they stopped to look up and observe the canopy above. They marveled at the height of the old rakau and how big the rakau trunks were. The tamariki measured the size of the rakau trunks by the number of children it took to link hands around them. It took 10 children to reach around the trunk of the largest rakau!
Attention was then focused on what was on the ground beneath. Trowels, magnifying glasses, identification books and white sheets in hand, the children spread out to find hiding insects.
Spiders, millipedes, slaters, a multitude of small flying insects, ground beetles, cicada and an impressive but shy native noke were found and captured the interest of the tamariki.
Native noke
One group was lucky to spot a korimako that was singing to them as they looked for insects.
Insects don’t only make their home in the ngahere, awa are teeming with insect life too! The Ōhinemahuta Awa flows through the reserve so Angela fished out insects from the awa along with a small cockabully for the children to look at.
Other activities included a nature scavenger hunt and a longer walk through another part of the ngahere. The tamariki went home with a new love for the living world and proud to have worked hard to tiaki their school environment.