Living Landscapes - Queenstown Primary

With the success of Spud-In-A-Bucket only recently behind us it was time for me to don my Enviroschools hat and go back to Queenstown Primary for a session from the Living Landscapes section of the Enviroschools kit. After some discussion with the teachers we decided to have a session on 'Healthy soils, healthy plants, healthy people' page 188 of the kit.

What this activity does is introduce the children to different soil types, is it sandy? is it moist? does it hold water well? I've a couple of experiments to do to show the difference between the way compost holds water versus sandy rocky dirt.

Once we have a bit of an idea about what different soil types look like it's time to go and explore. We split into different groups and off we went, ice cream tubs in hand to collect different soil samples.

With the samples in each group each drew a map of where they got their soil from. These results will be added to the main vision map once it is developed next year, this is great practice for mapping skills.

All we have to do now is identify the different soil types using the chart on page 190. And the results? No surprise here, the soil from the existing gardens was the best, closely followed by the area above the courts. Otherwise we will have some work to do in enriching the soil in other areas if we are going to have rich healthy plants growing.

Great work everyone, what a fantastic activity and so good to spend a lesson outside, this is what it's all about, getting amongst it.