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Tirimoana Noticeboard

A new noticeboard at Tirimoana

Earlier this term, students and staff from Linkwater School and members of the Tirimoana community attended a special ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Tirimoana Reserve, to celebrate the installation of a new noticeboard.  The noticeboard is the culmination of a project by one of Tirimoana’s youngest residents, Linkwater School student Angus Howe. Last year, Angus learnt about the stormwater system, and found out that any rubbish or pollution that goes down the drains on his street, ends up in the nearby bay.  To raise awareness about this, he helped to attach blue fish to the drains in Tirimoana, and then went one step further, designing a noticeboard that would allow him to further educate the...

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Busy bees at Witherlea

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...

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Recycling soft plastic

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...

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Resource Recovery Centre

Tour Blenheim’s Resource Recovery Centre

Take a virtual tour of Blenheim's Resource Recovery Centre, Waste Sorting Centre, and Green Waste facility with students from Fairhall School. Emily, Fynn, Allie, and Max have made this very professional video that takes you behind the scenes to find out all about what happens to Blenheim's waste.  From recycling to reuse, compost to hazardous waste disposal - they cover it all! https://youtu.be/2yw5mkcVmvc This video has been added to our Enviroschools Marlborough google drive: you will find it in the Zero Waste folder, along with heaps of other digital resources.  You can also learn more about Marlborough's facilities for dealing with waste on the Marlborough District Council website.  Either search 'waste' and go from there, or visit this...

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MGC silver award

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...

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Caretakers trip to Kaipupu Point

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...

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Bohally Marine Team

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...

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MGC and NCG enviro visit

MGC go exploring!

A bus load of Marlborough Girls' College students and their supporting teachers recently travelled over the hill to be hosted by the Nelson College for Girls Enviro Team. Keen environmental leaders from MGC were looking for some inspiration for next steps for their school, and they found it with their enthusiastic counterparts at NCG. The NCG enviro team shared some of their projects including a recycling station, a very cool upcycled clothing shop that opens a couple of times a term, and their school beehives. They also shared their Enviroschools journey to become Silver which included running movie evenings with environmental films, hosting interesting visiting speakers and inviting the public to attend, and running an energy...

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Linkwater School vision map_square

Linkwater Learners Share Their Journey

Linkwater School are a Green Gold Enviroschool working towards their next steps.   As part of this, they have been sharing their journey with other Enviroschools.  We got a chance to share in a visit with another school to see just what they have been doing and we all came away very inspired. After being met by some very articulate students, we were each gifted a kete which held their school image and vision.  We were then taken to the newly refurbished library to see the wall showing their Enviroschools progress from Bronze to Silver and onto Green Gold. It even highlighted their pretty impressive next steps as a school working to Beyond Green Gold. Students then shared...

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We are Riverlands

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...

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Angus, Sophie & Esmae

Fish appear on drains in Tirimoana

A Linkwater School student is spreading the message that 'only rain should go down the drain', in an effort to keep our beautiful Marlborough Sounds clean and healthy. Angus from Linkwater School was worried about pollution going into the sea at Tirimoana, near Anakiwa in the Marlborough Sounds.  Last year, Anna from Marlborough District Council visited Linkwater School with the "Drain Game" - an experiential activity that helps students understand where stuff goes when it goes down the drain.  Angus remembered learning that pollution (like rubbish, oil, paint or soap suds) that goes down stormwater drains goes straight into the nearest stream or river, and then into the sea.  He contacted Anna to see if she...

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Earth Day Scavenger Hunt

Earth Day Celebrations at Riverlands School

At the end of last term, Riverlands School got the whole school involved in celebrating Earth Day 2018!

Student enviro leaders planned, organised and ran activities that got students thinking about how they could go easy on the Earth at school and at home.  They used all of their creativity and organisational skills to come up with a huge number of fun and interesting activities that included a reading of "The Lorax", scavenger hunts, making headbands, earth crafts, goal setting, kahoot quizzes and 'the waste timeline'. Clearly, everyone had a blast, and put lots of thought into what they can do to help our planet.  The enviro leaders can be very proud of their efforts that...

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