Primary School Archives - Enviroschools Marlborough

November 27, 2025

Picton School – Growing a Food Forest From the Ground Up

A small group of Picton School tamariki taking part in the Science Alive programme spent Terms 2 and 3 diving deep into food forests and composting. What they achieved was incredible! The food forest plan Their goal was to set up a hot composting system in their Kids Edible Gardens and transform the ornamental garden near their lunch area into a thriving, productive space full of vegetables and herbs. They began by exploring how food systems work, then headed out to Esson’s Valley to see decomposition happening naturally. In the ngahere they noticed something important, the forest has a structure. Tall trees form the canopy, smaller plants create the understory, and...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

20 year celebration - the mayor saying a few words

September 14, 2025

Enviroschools stories General

Celebrating 20 years of Enviroschools in Marlborough

To celebrate 20 years of Enviroschools in the region, students from 4-12 years old from around Marlborough helped to plant trees and plants along the Taylor River Walkway. The students from 6 schools, Springlands kindergarten and Montessori were welcomed with a mihi. Followed by an introduction to the planting site, a site that was created in 2000 with Forest and Bird. The area was then added to in 2005 when Enviroschools first started in Marlborough. Again in 2015 at the Enviroschools 10 year celebration and recently for the 20 year celebration.

: Identifying leaves with Angela

: Natural collage – how our plantings will look in the future

: Natural exploration space constructing

: Insect hunting in the bush

To connect to the space, students took part in a range of activities, including hunting for insects, making a natural collage,...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

June 18, 2025

Enviroschools stories General

Student participation event

This year our Environmental Education team have taken a focus on the Enviroschools key area of People and Participation. As part of this focus they held a student participation afternoon. They held the event earlier this term with over 60 students from Marlborough schools taking part. It was aimed at primary school student Envirogroup leaders. With World Environment Day coming up, activities were developed and then set up to get students thinking about what activities they could do in their schools to highlight World Environment Day as well as have a bit of fun doing them.

: Water Race

: Making newspaper bags

: Making bags from old t-shirts

The activities consisted of making seed bombs, recycled t-shirt bags, a recycling relay and a water race....

by Enviroschools Marlborough

June 11, 2025

Enviroschools stories General

Discovering Stream Secrets: Marlborough Children Investigate the Taylor River

Earlier this term, ākonga from four Marlborough schools rolled up their sleeves, and trousers, taking part in a hands-on freshwater education event along the Taylor River. With guidance from Angela, Wendy (Junior Landcare), and volunteers from Forest & Bird, students explored the world of freshwater invertebrates and how these tiny creatures can tell us about stream health. The afternoon began with a visual habitat assessment. Ākonga learned to observe the features of a waterway—such as gravel beds, shaded banks, riffles, pools and runs. They used this information to make an assessment of the health of the awa. Tamariki then rotated between two hands-on, creative activities: designing and making their own bug bags, and building bathy...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

April 11, 2025

Enviroschools stories General

From Audit to Action at Redwoodtown

At Redwoodtown School, like many across Marlborough, students and staff are working hard to reduce what ends up in landfill through a school-wide recycling system for paper, plastic and food waste. However recently, the school's Enviroleaders noticed that enthusiasm for proper sorting had started to slip. Rather than let things slide, they set themselves a new goal: to redesign the recycling area and make it easier and more inviting for everyone to use. Before making changes, the students wanted to understand what types of waste were most common and where it was ending up—both inside classrooms and around the school grounds. With the support of the school cleaners, a day was set aside for...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

April 9, 2025

Enviroschools stories General

Exploring Nude Food at Witherlea School

This term, Year 5/6 students at Witherlea School embarked on an inquiry into Nude Food, investigating how food is packaged and exploring alternatives to disposable packaging. As they examined plastic wraps, zip-lock bags, and foil, they started to wonder: What actually happens to these materials once they’re thrown away? To dig deeper, Angela joined the students to explore how long everyday items take to break down. They considered a big “what if” question: What if everyone understood how long waste sticks around? Would that change the choices we make? The first challenge was to create a waste timeline. Students selected everyday items and arranged themselves in a line, predicting which would break down quickly and which...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

December 4, 2024

Enviroschools stories General

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...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

September 13, 2024

Enviroschools stories General

Knowledge of Tānemahuta grows at Springlands School

If you haven’t been to Mckendry Park in Spring, it is something that you must do. Golden and white Daffodils dot the park, whilst spring blossom gently falls to the ground from the breeze of Tāwhirimātea, as if snow is falling. The students of Springlands school got to experience this magic as part of their learning about Tānemahuta. This term Ramona and Angela from our Environmental Education Team worked alongside Springlands School to put together a plan to learn about Tānemahuta and his presence within their school and surrounding areas. Tānemahuta is the guardian of all the forests and all the birds and plants that live there.

The plan that was put...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

September 12, 2024

Enviroschools stories General

Ward School Nature Connection

After an introduction to Nature Connection at a workshop held by Ramona and Angela earlier this year, the idea of utilising an unused and wild area at Ward School grew in Nicole Cochranes mind. It came to fruition at the beginning of this term when she led a group of excited children beyond the normal school boundary. This was the first of weekly visits to explore and connect with nature. Each visit begins with setting up their ‘base camp’. Then they walk the perimeter to look for hazards that may have cropped up since their last visit. During their walk children pick up treasures – leaves, flowers, sticks, anything that takes their interest – to...

by Enviroschools Marlborough

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