Enviroschool
Omakere Enviro Workshops
Our students have been working co operatively in House based Enviro groups getting together every 3rd week on a Wednesday afternoon. The students chose their own enviro names. Pourerere Pollution Police, Motere Moas, Leaftastic Longrange. The Houses have been involved in hands on environmentally related workshops ranging from apple picking from our school apple trees, introducing a worm farm to help with our food scraps, recycling paper waste into fire starters, rubbish audits, pest control, bug hotel designing. We are very lucky to have Amy Davidson (enviro school facilitator) supporting us and bringing her knowledge to our tamariki .
Please check out what we have been up to below.
Enviro Workshops (2).pdfWhat does being an Enviroschool look like for Omakere students?
Students working together planning, investigating, problem solving. Our next generation taking responsibility and caring for their environment.
November 2020: Enviroschool CHB's Amy Davidson attended our assembly to present Omakere School with our Bronze Enviroschool Award!
Environmental Manaakitanga
Term-3-2020-Newsletter.pdfOur work with the Kahikatea Stand receiving great media coverage and recognition!
School News and HB Regional Council recently profiled Omakere School's Enviroschool Journey!
Enjoy our articles.
Environmental Manaakitanga.pdfDesigning, Creating, Building, and Sorting and Analysing our Seed Catchers!
Autumn 2020 we had a big project as our goal: To collect seed from the Kahikatea stand on Amblethorne Station
Firstly our senior students designed seed catchers to place at the Kahikatea trees. The seed catchers had to meet a criteria:
To be strong enough to withstand the wind, rain, and pests for 7 weeks!
To be designed so that they had a wide catchment area to gather seed
To use materials we had or recyclable materials
To keep the gathered seed safe from birds
Second we had a whole school visit to the Kahikatea stand to put the seed catchers into place. Our Kahikatea visit was an emotional day . We saw the impact drought over the Summer has had on our environment. Our Kahikatea trees did have some new growth and some of the female trees were seeding which is fantastic, but the majority were not going as well as we would like. Many of our native seedlings had not survived the dry. There was evidence of stock damage with our bug tree wrap homes and tracking boxes destroyed. We searched for evidence of seeds on female trees and remarked these trees with our "pink ribbon" including a bow added by a passionate student to make the Kahikatea feel special. We have reset our tree wraps and will check them soon. A group of students helped the seniors build and put into place the seed catchers they had designed in class. These seed catchers have been strategically placed to gather seed to be propagated at school. We enjoyed our time together as a school with our seniors using amazing tuakana-teina skills and manaakitanga to care for their groups. We left hoping for rain soon.
Kay Griffiths went to the Kahikatea Stand during Lockdown and gathered the senior students’ seed collectors from Term One. Kay said the seed collectors collected a good number of seed. We had a little (Lockdown) while to wait before catching up with Kay and planting these new Kahikatea seeds in our shade houses with Carol Burkin. There's a photo of the The last Kahikatea seeds we planted - can you find it? We are proud of being able to help this rare stand of Kahikatea through our work in the stand and by seed propagation. It will be a very special day indeed when our Kahikatea seedlings are strong enough to be planted back alongside their parent trees!
Kahikatea seed catchers were successful!
Back at school post COVID-19, the senior students used maths and science to investigate how effective our seed catchers were. Each seed catcher had been designed, built and set up at the Kahikatea stand in Term One. The groups sorted and classified the contents! Wow we had kahikatea seeds, spiders, insect parts, leaf litter, and a variety of indistinguishable items in every catcher!
Some of the questions that arose from the students (and adults) were around the discovery that when the kahikatea seeds are found at the stand they have a red attached that we had noticed earlier is designed to attract birds to eat and spread the seed. Our 'dried' seeds no longer had these fruit! Students learnt the kahikatea seed is a podocarp which means the seeds sit on a sweet, colourful, fleshy, "foot". In the case of kahikatea this is bright orange when ripe and the seed is dark with a waxy bloom like a dark grape has.
The seeds gathered have now been planted into our shadehouses to start growing! Good luck little seeds!
WHOLE SCHOOL KAHIKATEA FIELD TRIP MARCH 2020
Our Kahikatea visit was an emotional day yesterday. We saw the impact drought over the Summer has had on our environment. Our Kahikatea trees did have some new growth and some of the female trees were seeding which is fantastic, but the majority are not going as well as we would like. Many of our native seedlings have not survived the dry. There was evidence of stock damage with our bug tree wrap homes and tracking boxes destroyed. We searched for evidence of seeds on female trees and remarked these trees with our "pink ribbon" including a bow added by a passionate student to make the Kahikatea feel special. We have reset our tree wraps and will check them soon. A group of students helped the seniors build and put into place the seed catchers they had designed in class. These seed catchers have been strategically placed to gather seed to be propagated at school.
Juniors Beach Trip
6/3/2020
Aramoana and Te Angiangi Marine Reserve
6/3/20: What a fantastic morning we spent down at one of our local beaches Aramoana. We went for a walk and collected flax seeds to take back to school and pot up next week, so hopefully we can return our own grown seedlings back to the beach to help with the restoration plantings at Ouepoto Reserve. The children also learnt about how we need to respect our local Marine Reserve by not taking home any treasures collected on the beach. So we collected our treasures and made a co operative piece of Beach Art that we have taken photos of so we can leave our treasures behind.
Here are some of the cool things our kids got up to at the beach.
Kahikatea Pest andRodent Identification and Trapping, Bug Homes, and Seedlings Check - Term 4 2019
20191120_121028.mp4Can you hear the sounds of the frogs that have moved into the lagoon?
Collaborative Visual Arts
Our whole-school Term 3 mixed-media work of art - What foliage and animals can you see? Kahikatea standing tall; the endemic Kiwi,; native grasses growing strong; the cheeky Kea; Autumn trees; eels slithering through the lagoon; fish aplenty; textured rocks; dragonflies soaring high; and the beautiful Kereru perched majestically!
Our Plan and Action Video
We featured on the front page of the Hawke's Bay Enviroschools
Term Three Newsletter!
Enviroschools HB Term 3 2019 Newsletter.pdf
The Junior Room have had another busy few weeks. Our Inquiry into our natural environment and the importance of our native birds and trees have lead us on a class trip to visit Ngahere Bush. We were lucky enough to see some huge Nikau palms, Ponga (silver ferns), Kahikatea, Rimu, Totora, Lancewood and many more native trees planted over 70 years ago. The kids and the parents that attended had a wonderful time. Thanks to Gus Bell for his hard work in getting the track ready for our busy adventures.
We collected some seedlings while investigating Ngahere bush and the Junior Room children had a potting session back at school with Carol. We look forward to being able to replant these trees and bushes back into their natural environment in the coming months.
Can you find Omakere's mention in the Enviroschool's newsletter?
Enviroschools HB.pdf
Week 4! Wow we can’t believe how fast this term is going! We have been busy in the Junior Room this week with Kerry from Zero Waste, learning about what we can do with our household rubbish. Can it be recycled, reused or composted. The children were able to use some toys made from rubbish that had been recycled and even made some games themselves in class that incorporated paper and boxes from our recycling bin. Tin cans were used to make stilts and drums. Lots of singing took place in our Junior Room from the recycling band! Thank you Kerry for making us all more aware of what can and can’t be recycled.
Blackhead Beach Visit
The highlight of week 3 must be the whole school visit to Blackhead Beach yesterday. We were immersed in ocean experiences from very, very lively octopuses in tiny shallow pools to picking up rubbish and making Blackhead Beach an amazing clean, idyllic place for the community to enjoy; to creating sandcastles of every size and shape complete with moats, turrets, shell windows and flowing rivers!
Students got to use their inquiry minds and natural curiosity as they picked up small sea creatures and noticed them retreat into their shells then appear again as they replaced them back into their homes. Another highlight would have to be the finding of a decent sized octopus in a very shallow pool, who intrigued many of us including one particular teacher to such a point where the aquarium staff reminded us that screaming loudly might scare the creatures!
Our Kaupapa
The Enviroschools kaupapa is about creating a healthy, peaceful, sustainable world through people teaching and learning together.
Kaupapa is a Māori concept that has no direct translation in English but encompasses ideas of foundations, principles and philosophy. Our kaupapa guides all that we do and is embodied in five guiding principles that underpin the whole Enviroschools journey:
Empowered Students are enabled to participate in meaningful ways in the life of their early childhood centre or school. Their unique perspectives are valued for the knowledge and insight that they bring, and they are supported to take action for real change.
Learning for Sustainability recognises the types of teaching and learning that use connecting experiences to develop holistic and ecological perspectives, foster student enquiry, decision-making, action, and reflection, and create sustainable outcomes.
Māori Perspectives honours the status of tangata whenua in this land and the value of indigenous knowledge and wisdoms in enriching and guiding learning and action.
Respect for the Diversity of People and Cultures acknowledges the unique gifts, contributions and perspectives of individuals and groups, reinforcing the value of participatory decision-making and collaborative action.
Sustainable Communities act in ways that nurture people and nature, now and in the future, to maintain the health and viability of our environment, society, culture and economy.