Monday, July 5, 2010

What happens when you get all the Enviroschools together in one place?

Aside from lots and lots of work, it tends to go a little crazy. On the first night of our Wellington national hui the Wellington Team put together an amazing skit / play / thing?????? Who knows what to call it, but it certainly was fun.

Roles were swapped and the story was told of one facilitators plans for a student hui casued himself and his new girlfriend a fair amount of stress on evening.

Listening to the story I couldn't help but draw connections between Charles' hui and the one we had at Rippon. Thankfully the atua were smiling down upon us and granted good weather for the day.

This was a really great way to illustrate how the facilitators and rc's work together, even more fitting running along side the eco-system activity we'd all taken part in during the day where we investigated what the facilitators, rc's and national team all needed from each other in order to create the most amazing ecosystem for us to all live in.

And what better way to end a show than with a gigantic organic people powered machine......wooo hooo!

Raumati South Kindergarten

If anyone tries to tell you that you can't do EfS with kindergarten aged children, tell then to check out Raumati South Kindergarten. Their place is AMAZING! One of the first things you notice are the incredible grounds. There is evidence of reuse everywhere. Which ever way you turn then you'll find some food growing, even at the start of winter. They even have their own aviary, how cool is that?

Inside the walls are plastered with truly inspirational work by the children. You can find out about how Maui tamed the sun. What is and isn't important when you are making houses. Some uber cool water experiments and heaps more.

The staff and students love being part of Enviroschools and haver certainly embraced it into their kaupapa. Well done Raumati South Kindergarten!!!!!


Muritai School - Petone, Wellington

The day before the Enviroschools National Hui for 2010 I went on a tour of some of the local schools. First stop was Muritai School in Petone.

We were welcomed onto the school with an amazing powhiri and listened to some very empowered students talk about their Enviroschools journey. Being seated in the green room, a class room block that has a focus on sustainability, was also really inspirational. At the back of the room you can see the control box for their PVC's that are on t he roof and information about how they are hooked into the Schoolgen programme from Genesis energy, the excess energy they generate goes back into the grid and they can claim it back when they need it. Awesome!

Muritai school is up to year 8 and it is mostly the year 7 and 8's that act as leaders in their enviroschools work. But don't go thinking it is just them that do the work. They have a fantastic buddy system that puts the senior students with younger students, acting as mentors, advisor's and general inspirational young people.

I'm uploading the pictures as large as possible, so if you want to read the displays click on the image and it will hopefully open large enough to be able to read.......If you want to find out more about the ES work being done at Muritai visit their Enviroschool's blog page, it's mean burgers!

Edible Gardens with QPS Seniors

Miss Reed, ex Glenorchy now QPS, asked me to work with a crew of her senior students to help them with their edible gardening inquiry. As seems to happen so often in school it is really hard to get someone to help out doing these things, which makes my job super rad because I can go in and help them out.There are 9 of them in the group and as you can see the other six were busy doing other things. Another thing that happens so often in school, so many things to do, so many things to learn, how do you choose?

We'd already had one afternoon session where we checked out the area that it may go, plus the results of  their inquiry that they'd already done. The principal and property manager were asked about locations and garden types. The location confirmed and then the frame purchased, a very nice kit set from Placemakers.

With the kit set on site it was time for four of us to level the ground and assemble. Even though it's an easy kit set, it still takes time to figure it out. Good job everyone.

Next step, compost!