May 1, 2018
Earth Day Celebrations at Riverlands School
At the end of last term, Riverlands School got the whole school involved in celebrating Earth Day 2018!
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- Reading ‘The Lorax’
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- Colouring!
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- Collage
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- Kahoot quiz
zero waste Tag
April 30, 2018
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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April 4, 2018
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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March 25, 2018
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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March 23, 2018
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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February 21, 2018
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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November 21, 2017
Chemical Reactions at Bohally Intermediate School
A number of Bohally students used their ‘chemical reactions’ topic in Term 3 to explore sustainability issues. They connected their developing knowledge of chemical compounds and how they interact, with global and local issues in the real world. Students worked on a range of topics that included the chemicals used in salmon farming, the hidden dangers of cosmetics, what microbeads are made of, oil pollution, nuclear energy, and recycling. They were encouraged to apply their new knowledge to think about solutions that might help with these issues.
September 5, 2017
Kids’ Edible Gardens Update
Riverlands School Children at Riverlands School began last term’s ‘Edible Gardens’ sessions by introducing both themselves and their garden to Mrs A: their new gardening facilitator! While walking around the garden and showing Mrs A the vegetables growing in it, they also checked for seeds that could be saved for future plantings. They found some bean seeds inside their dried-out pods. Together they picked them, and put them into a bag to store for planting out in the spring. Having not been used for a number of weeks, the garden needed tidying. While the students were weeding, they discussed the topic of composting, and learnt that it was all about putting goodness back into the...
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July 6, 2017
Plastic Free July
It's not just July, it's 'Plastic Free July'! A group of students at Witherlea School have got a head-start on Plastic Free July, and have spent all term learning about what happens to our waste. They have visited Marlborough’s landfill and the resource recovery centre, which has given them a whole new perspective on how much work goes into taking care of the things that they have thrown ‘away’. Following their exploration, the students have taken action, by designing and then creating useful objects out of recycled materials – particularly single-use plastics. Check out some of their creations:
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- Cooper’s bottle top mural – a work in progress!
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- Brooke’s crocheted plastic bag fabric
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- Minion containers
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- Woven plastic bag fabric
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- Containers and a ‘pencil sharpener in a bottle’
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- Maddie, Hannah & Charlotte with their plastic bag creations