Designing nesting boxes for Kororā - little blue penguin

 

Junior Gardening

The junior school have been busy in the gardens last term. We were lucky enough to have Kai Puku come and support us with our gardening.

Conservation Week

To mark the beginning of Conservation Week 2023 Piwakawaka decided to get their hands dirty.  We thickened up the plantings at the St Albans gate with more hebe. It is looking really great and we are looking forward to seeing this grow up over the next few years. Hebe are great for attracting bees to our school grounds and the flowers on the hebe will make the entrance way attractive for our visitors.

  

We learnt how to plant the plants to give them the best chance of survival. First we cut away the carpet that has been laid to suppress the weeds. When planting the hole needs to be the size of the pot you are transplanting from. You don’t want it too deep, but the roots need to be at the same level as the ground. Then you loosen the soil by pressing on the side of the pot gently and turn the pot upside down to get the plant out. Put the plant in the hole you have dug and place the soil back around the plant.  Once the plant is in the soil you need to compress the top layer by gently standing close to the plant without standing on it. This helps the plant stay upright. We will need to make sure we keep the water up to them until they are established, but with all the rain we are having that should not be a problem.                                  

We also put in some Koromiko. This will add a bit of height and variety to the plantings. Awesome effort Piwakawaka.

Crusaders and Piwakawaka Litter Intelligence Survey and Beach Clean up

On a not so great West Coast Day Piwakawaka and the Crusaders Enviroschools leaders went to the Hokitka beach to conduct the Sustainable Coastlines Litter Intelligence Survey.  Whilst the Crusaders leaders worked with Emma Hunter from Sustaibale Coastlines on the Litter Intelligence Survey Piwakawaka did a beach clean up. 

The Litter intellligence survey requires us, along with Hokitika Primary and St Mary's, to survey the same 100metres of the beach and add our findings to the Sustainable Coastlines data base. We found 14 pieces of litter, categorised them, weighed them and added the information to the data base.

Along the beach we found five bags full of various litter including china plate pieces, plastic, drink bottles, wrappers, shoe inners, cartridges form fire arms and more. We bought this back to school to dispose of.

Silver!

We made it! Kaniere School has earned their Silver Enviroschools status, the first in Westland. It was a lot of hard work. Our Crusaders representatives Zoe Adlington, Elizabeth Olson and Isla Martin stepped up becuase our senior leaders were away at camp. They gave Regional co-ordinator Zoe Watson a tour of our school, after welcoming her along with their Piwakawaka classmates, and talked about all the projects wer have worked on since becoming an Enviroschool in 2010. 

On the last day of term we had a big celebration with Fiona from the Department of Conservation presenting the Crusaders team with the Silver Certificate.  Our leaders gave tours to parents and we had a shared lunch.

We planted a Rata tree to mark the ocassion. Teno pai Kaniere!

Piwakawaka Energy Projects

Piwakawaka have been studying energy. Thi has included personal energy and solar energy. We created  exercise programmes, solar ovens and wrote explanations. Our solar ovens were used to cook Somores for the class, YUM! We have also learnt about energy in space, learning about aurora!

Piwakawaka Stream Health Survey

 We have been learning about water quality and how it impacts on stream health. We surveyed two streams in the local area. One was in a forest and the other had recently had a slip run down it.  We put out fish traps the night before but were not lucky enough to catch anything. Some of the tasks we completed were a survey of the macro invertebrate populations, the speed of the water, water clarity and temperature, and the composition of the stream bed. We wer e supported by Rhianna from Landcare Trust and Zoe from Enviroschools.