Three Little Pigs

Wanaka Primary put on quite possibly the best school play I have ever seen. With their new school being built and the school embracing the Eco-Hut Challenge, the juniors have embraced this with their production of the three little pigs.

Held at the Lake Wanaka Center, which was packed to capacity, the children gave an amazing performance. I'm sure we are all aware of the story of the three little pigs. Wanaka Primary gave a great little twist to it all and I was overwhelmed by how much they mentioned sustainability and recycling.

The three little pigs all investigated different building methods and materials. They all have their advantages but some have a few more dissadvantages than others, especially when you look at their strength. It didn;t take much huffing and puffing to blow downthe straw and stick houses. The house built from materials found at Wanaka Wastebusters stood the test of the big bad wolf!

We've all heard the Jack Johnson song 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle'? Well watch out Jack, the students of Wanaka Primary have done a way better job of it than you. They were incredible and to be honest I was left rather speechless by the end of it. Absolutely blown away.

The sets and costumes were awesome! The acting and singing was first class. I've no idea what you guys are going to do next year but you've got a very hard act to follow.

If you come down to Wastebusters you can get windows, doors, taps.......

...and look what you can build

Wanaka Enviroschool Cluster Meeting

I got together with Wanaka, Hawea Flat and Makarora Primaries last night at Sailz Cafe in Lake Hawea to discus what we are doing in school at the moment in relation to Enviroschools and anything else connected with sustainability. Sailz Cafe very kindly offered to shout us the coffee too, what an amazing gesture, so remember the next time you're hanging out in Lake Hawea, pop in there for a cuppa and support them.

We had a fabulous meeting and discussed heaps of stuff. We started off talking about the Eco-Hut Challenge. All of these schools are registered and work is getting underway. We were amazed by tales of the students investigations at Wanaka Primary. Some of the students are designing and building their own solar water panels, another class has built model buildings out of rolled up newspapers, sketch up club is still a buzz at lunchtime.....Great work guys!

Hawea Flat are about to launch their travel cards as part of their work towards the school travel plan. Kerry from Wanaka Primary was really impressed with this idea, she's also seen it as part of a walking school bus in another school. So I'm going to create some cards for them as they get their walking school buses back into action this spring.

350 was also a hot topic of conversation. We think that the 23rd of October is going to be the Upper Clutha School Sports Day. So with this in mind, it looks like we are going to have all the schools together anyway on that day! How lucky is that? So......the plan....we were thinking that it would be really cool if we could put out the challenge to everyone that between us we all walk or run 350km during lunch time. Each school will be designated a certain distance that they have to run or walk and it's down to them to make it happen between themselves.

We also loved the idea from one of the students at Hawea Flat about making a soup from 350 locally sourced vegetables. With all those children we may need a little more than that, so....another idea from Kerry was to draw a 350km radius around Wanaka and create a lunch sourced from food that can be grown within that distance. Anyone know any chefs willing to do a super cool massive lunch? Keep your eyes peeled, this is going to be AWESOME!

The other plan that we are trying to hatch is how the schools can have a stall at the Wanaka A&P show in March next year to showcase all the actions they've taken for the environment as well as them holding workshops to teach the community how to make some of the fabulous products they've been producing.

We're going to have our next meeting around week 5 term 4 and we're going to see if we can get all the other Wanaka schools involved......Great work everyone, I'm so proud of all the work that is being done in our town!

Wanaka Primary Walking School Bus Features on National TV

This morning Tamati from TV1 Breakfast came to town. He is currently on a tiki tour of New Zealand visiting various towns who are making the effort to get as many cars off the road as possible.

They found Wanaride Share on the Internet and it just snowballed from there. Sophie Ward, the general manager of Sustainable Wanaka did a fantastic job of rounding up all the cool folks in town who use alternative methods of transport to get to and from work and just travel about, we even had a horse or two.

The walking school bus turned up just in time for his final live slot and the ywere fabulous. So many happy smiling faces. Being on national telelvision is a pretty cool way to start the day. Well done to Kath and all the other adult helpers who do a marvelous job of keeping this great initiative going.

You can watch the whole of Tamati's special report on the TV1 website.

Reuse Wanaka Primary

Week 4 was Wanaka Primary's turn for the Zero Waste Education Reuse unit and boy were these guys going to keep me busy. I had five classes from the middle school to visit and they were awesome.

We spent the week having very lively and active discussions. I was really impressed with the knowledge that these students already had about Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. AND, whilst I'm on this topic, during the time that I was there the children were being taught a fabulous song all about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I was treated to a few amazing performances of this. You guys blew me away.

The week just flew by, as usual heaps of reusable stuff came in early and there were some amazing examples of sharing of resources on the final make the desk tidy / piggy bank day.

Enough from me, stay tuned for some pictures below but if you'd like the real low down on what went on check out the Room 10 blog, they've got a great voice thread about our week together.

Compost - Wanaka Primary

This week I was invited to go to Wanaka Primary to teach the Zero Waste Education Compost unit to the senior school. We had a ball. I taught five classes each day and they were awesome. Such good thinkers and learners, so many questions and even more enthusiasm. You guys wore me out!

This was by far the hottest week I've taught this unit and it was incredible to be able to do so much of it outside. I'm not sure the worms were into the sunlight though.

All the students now have their own worm farm in a milk bottle and are armed with knowledge about all the different types of composting avail able to them. I've even heard a few parents comment that their children have come home and been through their compost heap in the back yard and started turning it. What fantastic feedback, it makes me really see how worthwhile it is.

Well done Wanaka Primary senior students, a job very well done. I'm back there next week to do reuse with the middle school, I'll have had a good sleep by then and be raring to go again.