Keep Our Beaches Clean!

ACTION LEARNING CYCLE PART ONE: Identify the Current Situation

We are surrounded by so many beautiful beaches in East Auckland. 

We could name the top 5 local to our school: 

* Eastern Beach

* Bucklands Beach

* Howick Beach

* Cockle Bay

* Mellons Bay

During term 1 we learnt all about: 

> HOW we use these beaches 

> WHAT special treasures are there (both living and non living  - example birds and pretty shells)

> WHAT trash is polluted our beaches 

Beautifully illustrated by Ella - how Room 4 use the beach

Year 1 students chose 4 items from the table to draw

stunning feathers found at local beaches!

Saddening to learn about the amount of trash on the beaches

We have now started to think about HOW we can stop rubbish ending up on our beaches. 

With Mr G we have been designing drain traps for our SIXTY stormwater drains. 

The year 4 / 5 are also going on a school trip next week to see and learn more about some special sea animals that call NZ beaches home. 

Eye on Nature Enviro Trip to Auckland Botanical Gardens

Last week a group of enthusiastic and passionate year 5 and 6 enviro students visited Auckland Botanical Gardens to learn more about how we can work together to help the environment. 

 'Ka tipu tahi tatou' 'Together We Grow' 

Activity One

Our first activity was learning about how things are powered - like appliances and vehicles. 

We played a game where we had to shovel coal to a coal box the fastest. 

This taught us that: 

                                   - coal is dirty 

                                   - shovelling coal is hard work!

                                   - it is not sustainable - we will eventually run out! 

 

We use a LOT of energy in our every day lives. 

Luckily, in New Zealand, much of our power is now generated using the wind or water.  

Powering a hairdryer using pedal power! 

Winding a handle to make lightbulbs work.
Some light bulks were easier to power than others.
LED light bulbs are the most efficient.

We can help the environment by: 

using less energy - switching off lights or devices when you're not home. 

Activity Two

Next we learnt about pest animals and how they are predators. 

  

Pests are animals that harm native birds and trees. We learnt about using a tracker tunnel, it has sticky stuck in inside it and when the pests walk in and out of it they leave footprints. Then we can work out what kind of (pest) footprints it matches. From this we can find out what kind of pests are harming the animals. 

Pests harm other animals because they are scared, to protect themselves or it is in their nature - like cats. 

Possums are pests that came to New Zealand. 

By Alaya & Ayla. 

We can help the environment by: 

trapping pests and monitoring their numbers.

Activity Three

Entering the 'ngahere' (forest) and learning about  the ecosystems there was the favourite activity! 

We used our senses to observe nature. We saw and heard lots of tūī,  some pīwakawaka (fantail), the tiny riroriro (grey warbler) and some tauhou (silvereye). 

We discussed what makes a healthy forest and how everything in the forest is connected, for example; the kererū feeds from the nikau palm tree and the weta and fungi live in this tree. 

We can help the environment by: 

planting more natives and taking care of them. 

Activity Four 

We talked about a landscape we had to make based on nature with some water in it. 

Once we were finished we were told something would be added to our masterpieces. Our groups got a surprise when we saw the pile of rubbish! We were appalled and confused! We got 5 minutes to think about what would happen once the rubbish had taken over and we talked about what we would do to stop it. 

By Kimberley & Eden

 

We can help the environment by: 

keeping our waterways clean and rubbish free.

Our enviro groups favourite activities were: 

1st = Exploring the bush 

2nd = Learning about pests

3rd = Energy and water care

Huge thank you to Eye on Nature Beautification Trust for organising this trip for us!

Water tank - the finished aquarium!

 All year 6 students who are off to Intermediate School next year have added a wonderful sea creature to our "aquarium". This is how we would love our ocean to look - teeming with life! 

Not only is this a fantastic piece of art that our students have created, it is also a great way to leave a positive mark at the end of their time at primary school and to showcase our water tank in a beautiful way! 

How many different creatures can you spot? 

Adopt a Park - final 2024 visit! Operation: stream clearing!

 Today we had our final visit to William Green Domain for 2024. 

We focused on the stream. Our aims were:

1. To find out more about the health of the stream by doing some tests and observing what was in there

2. To unblock the stream so the water could flow and not be blocked. 

the stream - where does it flow from and to? 

The favourite activities, by far, were seeing the eels and getting in the stream. 

Others students said... 

" I LOVED getting in the river and getting rubbish out" 

" I like wears boots and getting in the creek" 

" Pulling all those big weeds out was satisfying"

" The dragonfly was scary!" ( I thought it was very cool!) 

" I like going across the stream on the stepping stones" 

"Looking at tiny bugs in the tray was fun"

"Working out if the stream was healthy or not was interesting" 

can you spot the eel? 

rubbish that we found in the stream

 

getting in and doing the mahi!

removing lots of arum lilies - a pest plant

We conducted a number of experiments and observations to work out how healthy the stream was. 

Our findings were: 

Water temp: 20°C (fair)

Water clarity: avg of 71cm (good)

SO SMART (0=poor, 1=fair, 2=good)
smell - 1

obstruction - 1

stream bed - 0

margin/bank - 1

appearance of water - 2

rate of flow - 1

top surface - 1
overall SO SMART score: 7/14 (fair)

Macro invertebrates: found worms and damselfly larvae, note: eel spotted. (overall: fair)

pH: 7.5 (good)

Overall stream health: FAIR. 

finding interesting bugs - a damselfly larvae

all the arum lilies we removed. 

Year 6 Sea Art

Earlier in the year our wonderful librarian, Susie painted our water tank to make it look more interesting and make it stand out. 

We realised that many students didn't know what it was for or even really notice it so we thought we could make it more of an exciting piece of art. 

Susie painted  the background like the ocean so we thought we would add some sea creatures. 

The year 6 leaver students were invited to leave their mark on the school by adding a sea creature. 

They can return in years to come and see their work. 

Each of the year 6 classes will have a turn over the next few weeks, it's looking great already! 

Check here for our progress. 

Year 5/ 6 Enviro Trip to Auckland Botanical Gardens

On Tuesday 19th March the Year 5/ 6 Enviro students attended the 'Eye on Nature' one day activity programme.  This enviro programme covers a range of topics educating and empowering students to take action for the environment.

The favourite things were...testing the water quality and seeing the pests that they are trying to keep out of New Zealand. 

We learnt...

... if the nitrogen in the water is zero that's good for the water.

... that mice are a pest

... how pests affect the environment

... which bugs re pests or pals. 

Activities covered were:

1) PESTS 

Looking at animals and plants that are a pest in New Zealand. 

We ran around playing tag to illustrate the problem of how moth pod spreads. 

We can help by:  telling more people about pests and taking part in trying to remove them. 

 

 

2) BUGS: PEST or PAL?

During this session we learnt about a number of bugs that New Zealand biosecurity is trying very hard to keep out of our country as they are extremely damaging to our fruits and vegetable crops. 

We can help by: looking carefully at bugs in our Garden to Table sessions to see if creatures are friends or not. 

 

3) RUBBISH SORTING (TRAFFIC LIGHT BINS) 

This was a fantastic refresher for us as it matched our school bin system perfectly.  We played a fun relay game running to put rubbish into little coloured bins; red, yellow or green.  

We can help by: making sure we put our rubbish in the correct bins and educating others to do this too!

Fence post made from soft plastic

4) WATER TESTING 

During this final activity we were scientists! We did a number of experiments to test the water quality and decide how clean or polluted it was - we came out with a score of 90% clean. 

We can help by: keeping our water ways clean and making sure the outside drain has only RAIN go down it! Pick up rubbish you see at school or anywhere near a drain.