Kakariki Kiwi in the Junior School

Kakariki Kiwi

 

Room 33 have introduced a new environmentally friendly programme in the junior school to encourage children to help sustain their surrounding environment, at school, home and in their wider community.

There are 4 whole class levels to work towards- Green, bronze, silver and gold. 

Children are encouraged to take action alongside their teacher, classmates, parents, extended family and friends.

Green- This stage is introducing children to environmentally friendly ways of managing their surrounding classroom environment e.g. monitoring electricity use, water consumption and recycling rubbish.  This stage will be teacher directed and monitored.

Bronze- This stage is building on children’s current knowledge of their direct classroom environment. It is encouraging them to think about other classes around the school and managing the entire junior campus e.g. making sure lights are turned off when there is nobody in a room, teaching year 0 children where to recycle their rubbish, making sure classes have Enviro monitors. This stage can be monitored by class discussions/reflections and photographs.

Silver- This stage is encouraging children to take their knowledge about recycling, electricity and water home to teach their family ways to manage these elements. This stage can be monitored by discussion, photo evidence and parent/ teacher communication or a wall display.

Gold- This stage is building on silver level- however children need to start taking their message to extended family and friends and the wider community e.g. a family beach clean-up, designing and making posters to put up locally. This stage can once again be monitored by photo evidence, discussion and parent/ teacher communication. 

The aim of this new programme is to establish these routines so they become a natural part of each child’s day. The programme is designed to be the student’s responsibility and initiative. 

Litterless Lunches

This term, the Year 3 classes looked at ways we could reduce the amount of litter being produced by our school. We decided to introduce a litterless lunch competition. Each Thursday, Year 3 children inspect lunchboxes around the school and award certificates to the junior and senior class with the highest percentage of litterless lunches.
There have been some big improvement in some classes, but we still have a long way to go.

Here are some examples of litterless lunches

 We also made some posters to get our message across.

Visitor from Treescape

We had Jo Harris from treescape come in and share some information about an area that has being set up that is going to be safe for Kiwi’s to be introduced into. We learnt that there is a lot to consider when setting up these areas. They must be as close to the birds’ natural habitat as possible and area where no pests and predators can come in.

We were really happy to hear about this work being done because we now know that our Native New Zealand endangered birds are being helped in some small way.

Visit to the Zoo

We went on a year 1 trip to the zoo and learnt more about the endangered Native birds we have in New Zealand.

We got to touch and look closely at some of the worst predators to our Native New Zealand birds. We learnt that the worst predator is the dog.

 We also found out that there are a lot more endangered Native New Zealand birds than we realized and that there are some special people in New Zealand making areas that are fenced off and safe for them to be in their natural habitat without the danger of being killed and having their eggs eaten. 

Stormwater Drains

Sally from Watercare visited the Year 3 classes and showed us how pollutants can enter our waterways through the stormwater drains. Some common pollutants that get into drains are: detergents; paint; food; oil; dirt and rubbish.  Stormwater drains empty straight into rivers, lakes and the sea and any pollution can damage the marine environment.

Year 3's Orakei Basin Clean up

Back in Term 1, the Year 3's noticed that there was a lot of litter blowing around our school. We followed the litter into our gully and down the gully stream. We realised that the gully stream fed into the Orakei Basin and this was where our rubbish could end up. After a bit of research, we learned just how much damage the rubbish could do to our marine environment. As a result, we decided to take some action and went on a walk around the Orakei Basin to pick up any rubbish we could find.

This is the rubbish we collected

Year 5 Community Rogaine Event

The year five team are currently planning, designing and making a community Rogaine course so that the Meadowbank community can become more familiar with the areas they live, work and play in.

Rogaine is a type of orienteering where the participants have to find clues on a map and answer questions about the area they find themselves in.  The Year 5 children experienced a day of orienteering during term one as part of our EOTC week and during that week they got to make their own scavenger hunt down at Waiatarua Reserve.

Last term, 24 students, a bunch of parents and Mrs Knarston went along to a schools Rogaine event run by an organization called Lactic Turkey.  Our teams did really well and got to learn more about the event which is more than just hunting for clues.

As part of our topic for this term we are cross grouping into four areas of event planning and construction.  Miss Carryers group are focussing on advertising and the promoting of the event.  Miss Bell's class are coming up with the environmental activity stations that are part of the course and earn each group more points on the day.  Mrs Knarston's class are finding and mapping the clues and Miss Bryant's class are digitalising the clues and creating a smart device version of the course.  The school event will be in Term Four and we hope it will become an annual fundraiser for Meadowbank School.

In week 6 we have a trip out to Ambury farm where we will all be participating in a Rogaine event!