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!

Year 1 Bird Adoption

In Term 2 the Year 1 classes were learning about native birds. We learnt that some of our native birds are in danger of becoming extinct so we decided to see if we could help them. We all did jobs at home to raise money and sent the money to the Otorohanga Zoo. Each Year 1 class adopted a different native bird. Room 29 adopted a Tui, Room 30 adopted a Pukeko, Room 31 adopted a Kiwi, Room 32 adopted a Kereru and Room 33 adopted a Kea. The money that the zoo got from us helps to look after the native birds.

Term 2: Student Council, Sustainable Coastlines and other Year 5 and 6 Student clean up Okahu Bay:

Over 100 students, parents and teachers went down on a cold Sunday morning to clean up Okahu Bay. Initially it looked as if the beach was very tidy rhat was until the students started to dig deeper and managed to find several bags of rubbish.

The following day the students were able to audit the rubbish to look at what was exactly found. The rubbish that was found ranged from rope all the way through to appliances, however some of the bigger contributing factors were: Cigarette packaging and lighters, caps and lids, food wrappers and plastic containers, as well as medical products.

Although in the grand scheme of things our change was small but it still managed to make a difference. Our next focus will be to complete the clean up again next year during the same time and compare results.

Safe Bottles Promotion

The Year 4 team has come up with a great fundraising idea in order to raise money for the signs in the gully. We would like to make some new signs and that will cost money so we decided to sell Safe Bottles. This is a great project because we are encouraging people to use less plastic and buy a stainless steel bottle that you can use everyday. Room 5 have created these great posters to promote this product. Look out for them around the school!

Orchard

Check out Room 34's blog to see them doing some great work in the Orchard last term:
http://www.misshedstrom.blogspot.co.nz/

Sustainable Environment Award

We are so excited! The Lorax Garden Project has been nominated for this award. All the Year 2 children from 2011 were involved in the creation of the garden.