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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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Riverlands School Mural

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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Paper4Trees Marlborough

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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Learning about litter and waste

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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New garden at Rapaura School

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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Cooking cauliflower rice

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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Hannah & Liam The Rubbish Trip

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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