Water at Glenorchy

Glenorchy Primary was the destination for my first school visit of the year. I always love going up there, such an amazing drive and I always have a wonderful time when I get there, although for some reason I seem to put my forgetful head on as soon as I arrive. I've left a notebook there, but this time I left a whole crate full of resources....ooooops.

Anyway....lets focus on the good stuff. This term the senior room, who now have a new teacher, Mrs. Hamilton, are inquiring into water. So what better way to start off than the Zero Waste Education Water unit. The senior room is a mix of year groups and everyone did so well getting through this unit intended for years 7 & 8.

Since Glenorchy are a Silver Enviroschool I decided to use a few of the ES water activities. We started the day off with making water bracelets and went into the how much is fresh activity.

The day went really well, lots and lots of experiments. We saw how water evaporated from a puddle on the playground, made our own water cycle model, saw the effects vegetation has upon storm water run off, learnt how to change a washer on a tap and finally the river story.

An absolutely fantastic day, I'm really looking forward to hearing what the senior room at Glenorchy will be finding out about water in the next few weeks. In the mean time, I get to spend a Saturday exploring the local hills now I've got to go back and pick my stuff up.

 

 

Chickens at the head of the lake......

It seems like it's been way too long since I paid a visit to Glenorchy. I tell you what, these guys have been busy......I'm sure you'll remember that they were planning to install a chicken coop to help take care of their organic waste, well it's arrived and is awesome!

The purpose of my visit wasn't to go and see the chicken coop, I had other things to do. Mainly deliver a few of the Zero Waste Education units. Over the two days I was there we got through Recycling and Compost with the senior class during the morning and then in the afternoons I worked with the very imaginative juniors on the Reuse unit. We had a ball, considering the very wide age range we managed to get everything done and when it came to making the desk tidies and piggy banks I'll sure you'll agree they did a wonderful job.

It was the first time I'd done the recycling unit and boy do these fellas up at Glenorchy know their stuff about waste and recycling. We flew through it. The compost was a little more challenging, partly due to the activity of making a mini compost in a milk bottle. Not that that is hard, but even with a small group it gets quite entertaining. As always the students got it and made some fantastic worm farms!