New World Little Gardens

Kaniere School had a visit from New World Hokitika on Friday. They have donated  a Little Garden Kit to the school as part of their in store promotion.

The kit consists of a garden plot, garden compost and a box full of Little Garden seeds. Weka and Weka Teina joined us in saying thank you to New World. They are completing the School Kit Little Garden projects as part of their learning about the environment in Term 4. Unfortunately it was cold and rainy when the delivery took place so we were unable to erect the garden then and there.

We will be building our Little Garden plot on Wednesday with staff from New World. Thank you so much to the New World team in Hokitika.

Kowhai Seed Planting

 Piwakawaka Year 4 students spent our Friday morning planting out our kowhai seeds.  We had sandpapered the edge of each seed and soaked them to improve the chances of them germinating.  All together we planted one hundred and four seeds. Hopefully we get the same number of plants to grow on for planting; either in the school grounds, or in the community. 

                                                                         

Learning about Energy in Piwakawaka

Our focus for this year is ENERGY! We have made mind maps of all the different types of energy we know about. In term 1, before Covid we took part in a Food for Thought programme with Jess from Foodstuffs. She taught us about the energy in food.we have learnt so much more since then. We made our mind maps in groups, harnessing the energy of the group through co operation. First we brainstormed the ideas on ti a slide and found images in Explore. We tried to group our ideas of similar types of energy then find the best images to represent that idea. We found we needed to compromise and share our ideas until we all agreed. Sometimes that is not always easy. Have you ever had to collaborate on a mind map?

                  

                

Propagation

Piwakawaka students learn how to prick out plants, and pot on older plants as part of their responsibility for the school propagation tunnel. The plants grown are for use in the school grounds and for riparian planting.

Beach Survey - Sustainable Coast Lines initiative

Last year our Lead Teacher Mrs Hickford went to a Sustainable Coastlines Citizen Science Workshop. There she was introduced and took part in the first Citizen Science Sustainable Coastlines Litter survey. This year we were lucky enough to go to the beach with Ms Zoe Watson from Enviroschools to resurvey the area that was surveyed the previous year. After collecting the rubbish we bought it back to school to classify and weigh. The data was then entered  to the Sustainable Coastlines Litter Intelligence Database.

Kaniere School Enviro Group

Jed and Victor help classify the rubbish

Weighing the litter back at school

Blue Fish Installation

The Knaier School Enviro Group is continuing with its Blue Fish installation around Hokitika. This is an ongoing project started in 2012. IT started with the installation of Blue Fish around  the Kaniere Tram and school. It was extended into the business district of Hokitika in 2015. This is our third installation. We are targeting high use areas in the Hokitika township. We installed fish around the airport, and along Park Street near the new WDC Sports Hub and Hokitika Primary School. Blue Fish are about remembering the marine environment is the place where everything that goes down the drain ends up.  The installed fish were sponsored by Westland District Council.

 Photo Credit Janna Sherman:   Enviro Group

Haki, Amelia and Jamie-lee installing a fish outside the Sports Hub