We found out that we had a problem in the school, as lots of sycamore trees were popping up in the old playground. We thought that if these stayed here, we wouldn't be able to play on the playground, as it would be filled with trees. We went outside for 10 minutes, and we had to pull 10 plants out. We worked out that it would be 200 plants. We ended up pulling out 1055 plants in 10 minutes. We went out and did another 5 minutes and pulled out around another 700.
Our Year 6 Leaders joined Barrytown and Hokitika Primary Schools in an Action Day organised by Enviroschools Co-ordinators Lauren and Laura.
Our focus was on Matariki, our trip coincided with the rising of Poaka and the Matariki cluster.
There was a rotation of activities. Robyn, a local landowner, shared her knowledge and family traditions, of Celtic origins, and the Hawthorne bushes that grow on her property. Learning about different cultures and their relationships with the natural world is interesting.
Our first activity was astronomical in nature. It centred around the position of stars within the Matariki cluster and the meaning of the stars. Students nominated a star and came up with an action to represent that star, before getting themselves in a position the star holds within the star cluster.
Then it was off to the planting station. Annie and Sarah, from New Zealand Conservation Volunteers, showed us how to correctly plant trees and protect them from marauding weka. The planting connects the existing bush edge with the coastline. This makes a mountain-to-the-sea connection that birds can use to traverse the ecosystems. This is very rare on the Barrytown Flats. The planting is on Robyn's land. It needs to be at least thirty metres wide to support the birds. It takes many thousands of trees to be planted to create the passage. The trees we planted were part of the billion trees planted worldwide to mark the coronation of King Charles III.
Our last station was hosted by Vanessa from the Department of Conservation. The focus of this station was on the ecosystem present in the Ngahere, the bush. We created a web of life based on local fauna, and then we shook the bushes to find creatures we don't always see as we traverse through the bush. The highlight was a stick insect but huhu's were also in high demand.
It was a bleak day, with a quick shuffle we finished Enviroschool afternoon activities. The activities are led by our wonderful Crusaders. They try to choose activities that appeal to all the age groups at school. This term we focused on the Living Landscape.
The students organised 'Who Am I?'. The person who was in had to try and guess the pest. The audience could only answer yes, sometimes or no to questions. Mrs Scott would have died if she could see what was on her head!
In the room next door we had 'Tricky Tracks' matching the tracking tunnel prints to the animal.
Over in Weka, the 'Human Camera' was snapping away. In pairs one child was the camera the other the camera operator. The camera operator tapped the camera on the shoulder to open the shutter. Then they had to guess what they saw. It was a lot of fun.
As we have a spare classroom we had a game of 'Ants and Anteaters'. After lining up in two lines ants ran left and anteaters right. If the leader called Ants the anteaters chased the ants and if they called anteaters the opposite happened.
It was an awesome afternoon and well done leaders.
