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Enviroschools Marlborough / Posts tagged "local stories" (Page 3)
Green Gold Collective at Renwick School

Renwick School hosts Green Gold Collective

It was a treat for teachers from our three Marlborough Green Gold schools to visit Renwick School this term. Hosted by students in the Green Ferns group with support from their lead teachers, we saw a presentation on some of their actions for this year.  These included their school-wide BioBlitz in Term 2 and their Enviro-week in Term 3.  Students shared the learning that followed on from the BioBlitz, such as entries into the science fair.  The 'Stream Team' took us to see the changes they have been making to protect the school stream, including regular waste clean-ups and weeding sessions.  It was exciting to hear they have seen some fish and an eel...

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Linkwater Envirogroup

Linkwater School’s Green Gold Review

Linkwater School has now been a Green Gold School for 5 years.  Students recently shared what they have done since becoming a Green Gold School as part of their review reflection. There would need to be a lot more pages to share all of the projects that they have undertaken and how they have intertwined sustainability into their curriculum, programmes, and wider community. Led by their awesome students, we got to see their many actions displayed on whole walls around their library.  Projects ranged from a hazelnut living hut through to upcycled swings.

Of note was the way that they had tried new things out: in some cases acknowledging that the things that they had planned...

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Renwick clean up

Enviro week at Renwick School

Ellen Theobald, co-leader of Renwick School's 'Green Ferns' enviro group, wrote this article to tell us about the school's recent Enviro Week activities. Our Green Ferns organised a really fun Enviro Week to coincide with the Climate Strikes and the work done by Climate Karanga and George Varney (Climate Youth Action Team) at the tree planting opportunity that was offered to schools. We also decided that we need to raise the profile of recycling within our classrooms as school systems changed and we needed to educate everyone to let them know what to do.

The Green Ferns ran a competition where classes were encouraged to decorate their cardboard and paper recycling bins (Thanks...

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Canvastown School House plants

Canvastown kids explore their Living Landscape

The kids at Canvastown School have been fully absorbed in discovering what creatures live in the school’s wild places this year. They have poked under logs and in tree-stumps, crawled through long grass, shaken the branches of trees and picked through the edible gardens, seeking out all manner of living things. They used the Living Landscapes kit to take a closer look at the birds, bugs, plants and fungi, finding names for them and learning about their interesting habits.  Angela visited and helped them with some activities from Tiro One One - our Marlborough living landscapes resource.

We flipped over a tree trunk and found heaps of insects on the bottom. - Finn Wendy from...

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Enviroschools Silver

Kindergartens shine silver!

Two of our kindergartens reflected at Enviroschools Silver in Term 2: congratulations to Picton Kindergarten and Seymour Kindergarten. Tamariki at Picton Kindergarten have been doing lots of inspiring work in their local environment.  They visited Kaipupu Point Wildlife Sanctuary and planted native trees, helped to clean up local beaches, and learnt how to care for the creatures in the ocean.  They even upcycled old tee-shirts to make their own carry bags, which they can use instead of plastic ones! At Seymour Kindergarten the vision is 'looking after Papatūānuku, so she can look after us'.  Tamariki and their whanau learn about the natural environment in a hands-on way.  The kindergarten has a worm farm, compost area,...

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BioBlitz Renwick School

Renwick students lead BioBlitz

Students in Renwick School's 'Green Ferns' enviro-group organised and ran a BioBlitz this term, to find and identify many of the different kinds of living things at their school. The whole school was involved in the BioBlitz, with students ranging from new entrants through to Year 8s scouring the school grounds for living things to study.  The edible garden and school stream area were a focus, after the Green Ferns identified them as potential biodiversity hot spots. The Green Ferns, supported by Ms Tullet, did lots of mahi to prepare for the day.  They planned how the day would run, with different classes taking part at different times of the day and in different parts of the...

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Tamariki share their love of monarchs

Tamariki share love of monarch butterflies

In April a group of tamariki and kaiako from Picton Kindergarten visited the Kuini Harata Kaitiaki (Queen Charlotte College Kaitaiki team) to deliver a presentation about monarch butterflies. The tamariki were very knowledgeable and explained the life cycle of monarch butterflies, their food source, how to protect them, and what predators they are vulnerable to. The QCC Kaitaki students also learnt about the important work happening with the Monarch Butterfly tagging programme, so we all can find out where our Marlborough Monarchs go to 'overwinter'. Picton Kindergarten kindly gifted the kaitiaki group some swan plant seeds and their very own caterpillar who they have named 'Jo'.  Jo is doing very nicely, eating lots and getting big and fat.  The QCC...

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Wrappin' at Blenheim School

Wrappin’ at Blenheim School

Last term, students at Blenheim School took action to make their lunchboxes more sustainable. The whole school was involved in a beeswax wrap making day, where each student made and took home their own wrap.  Led by teacher aide and Enviroschools lead Tracy Holdaway, the wraps were made using a special recipe of beeswax, jojoba oil and resin (recipe and ingredients from Pure Nature), which resulted in a beautifully soft, pliable, and slightly adhesive wrap.  Once the students had finished, 60 more wraps were made to sell at a very affordable price from the school office.  The Envirogroup are hoping that this initiative will raise awareness about alternatives to single-use plastic wrappers in lunchboxes, and see a...

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School Strike 4 Climate Action

School Strike 4 Climate Action

A large group of empowered students and their supporters joined the School Strike 4 Climate Action at Seymour Square on March 15th.  The students did themselves proud: peacefully, positively and enthusiastically making their voices and their message heard.  The organising groups from Marlborough Boys’ and Marlborough Girls’ colleges did an impressive job of organising the local protest, and in the process, formed some new links between the enviro groups at the two schools.  They are now hoping to work together on some other projects, so watch this space! ...

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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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