Recycling and Compost at Queenstown Primary

Once again it looks like my skills of keeping this blog ultra fresh have escaped me. Hold on tight and get ready of a series of posts to sum up term 2 so far, and boy has it been a busy one.

The term started with a mammoth Zero Waste Education booking at Queenstown Primary. Two teams, two units. Recycling and compost were the subjects and I had a ball working with these 7 classes.

Their school camp this year visited Stewart Island and they wanted to be armed with heaps of knowledge about these two subjects.

I had an absolute ball teaching these units. The responses from each of the classes was amazing, as it always is. During the Recycling unit we look at life cycles and you could just see the amazement on everyone's faces as we explored all of the parts of the process it takes to make a steel can. It certainly makes you think twice about throwing a can in the bin and not in the recycling. What I like best though is it really makes you think twice or ten times before buying something that can't be refilled.

The compost unit is always good fun, although on the make the worm farm day I must admit it gets a little frantic for me to really enjoy myself. I hear that some pretty neat worm farms get made but I don;t always get to see them all......I snapped these pics from Mrs. Fergussons class, I'm sure you'll agree that everyone was having a ball.

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.

 

 

Do we have enough resources to keep on going like this?

When I was trained on the Zero Waste Education Resource Sustainability unit a few months ago I was pretty inspired with the content of it. It's aimed at intermediate level students, years 7 & 8, and boy does it pack a heavy weight punch.

Essentialy we look at the resources we have on planet Earth. What is our stuff made from? How is it made? What resources do we use in making it and getting it to us? What happens at the end of it's useful life? All of the questions you'd expect really.

To get a better understanding of this we look at cradle to grave manufacturing processes. When you look at this process, and especially the energy and waste involved within the manufacturing process it becomes rather overwhealming. When your attention reverts to the millions of plastic water bottles that are bought and discarded every day it just blows your mind. So many of us hardly spare a thought for what is embeded within our everyday products that we literally take for granted.

Even with this in mind it kinda seems like we've been trucking along nicely like this for a while, some guys are going on about the blobe warming up, but it can't make that much difference can it? Right.....If you need any more convincing on this issue I urge you to watch this short population animation. There is a little bit of an issue when we look at the math behind steady growth. Something we are all told is a good thing.....hmmmm I beg to differ. Steady growth is good at first but then it just goes beserk, like I say, watch this video and be prepared for your mind to be blown.

So now your mind has been blown we need to have some solutions. Rather than Cradle to Grave manufacturing we need to support Cradle to Cradle. So on the last of our four days in class we look at how we can put our waste product back into the manufacturing stream. Creating clean streams rather than waste streams.

We still need to follow the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle philosophy as well as purchasing as much produce as possible that has been made locally. However we will still purchase things that when they reach the end of their life will need to be discarded. So, lets really think about what we are buying and when we make a purchase use our super powered human brain to make an intelligent choice and buy a product that can go back into the manufacturing stream. If you're really on to it, you'll look for products that have been made from resources that have come from a waste stream.

This is such a powerful unit, please get in touch if you'd like me to deliver it to your school.

Reusing in the old goldtown

It would appear that September 09 is all about going back to schools I haven't been to in ages. It's so good to be back in Arrowtown Primary. 5 middles classes were the first to see me in my mamouth two week visit.

1. As usual there were some very imaginative creations with the reusing objects in a bag game. What I do with this activity is;
2. Split the class into five groups
3. Each group gets a brown paper bag with three items in it
4. The items get pulled out one at a time and then each group gets 30 seconds to give as many alternative uses for the item as possible
5. Once we've been round the groups three times they all get a minute and a half to come up with something that all three items can be made into

Have a look below at some of the super cool desk tidies and piggy banks that these guys made, great work!

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!

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.

Happy New Year!

After an awesome Christmas with my family I'm back to the sunshine and warm weather.

2009 is looking like it is going to be a very busy year for me and our schools. Makarora Primary, Wanaka Primary and Queenstown Primary are focusing their attention towards their continued Enviroschools work. So look out everyone, there is going to be even more amazing work done this year.

I'm also working with QLDC to help schools create travel plans. I think that the way we get to and from school is so important. If we can help a school, students and parents do this in a more sustainable and safe fashion then everyone is a winner. I also believe we can make it fun too!

If I haven't delivered any of the Zero Waste Education units in your school get in touch and we can book a time, the children love them. hopefully I'll be trained on the other units soon so we can start getting those booked in and delivered.

Remember, I'm here to help, no matter how large or small your idea or question is, email, phone or pop in and see me, we'll be able to come up with a solution.

Water and Compost at St. Josephs

I was asked if I could come and deliver two of the Zero Waste packages, Water and Compost. Times are busy at St. Joseph's at the moment so I had to adjust the usual way of delivering the modules so we could fit it in.

The seniors have been looking at water recently and they wanted to find out a little more about it before Susie McKeague, the Land Resource Manager from Otago Regional Council comes to visit them. She will be doing some fantastic stream experiments with them. She is also planning two sessions at streams in Wanaka and Queenstown in January. I'll post details here nearer to the time.

It was the first time I'd delivered the water module and it rocked! I love science and this module is all about science and experiments. It is a fairly in depth module and we cover lots of topics about water.

The water cycle, do you know how water moves around our planet? Evaporation, condensation, transpiration, precipitation......do you know what all these fancy words mean? Ask the seniors at St. Jo's, they can now tell you all about it and would probably draw you a cool little diagram to help explain.

Do you know where your waste water goes? Once we'd got the giggles about poos and wees over with we followed the journey of our waste water and considered what happened to it. We soon figured out where all the storm water goes and after looking at various pollutants in water it didn't take long before everyone wanted to wash their cars on the lawn and not let all the soap go down the drain straight into the lake.

For the compost module I had the gardening club and a couple of very interested and enthusiastic parents as helpers. We had a ball and the wide ish age range didn't pose any problems. We had lots of examples of wonderful cooperative learning going on with the older children helping out the younger ones where needed.

For those that were interested in making sure their worm farm was a rip roaring success I held a quick session on how they can go about doing this. I had a few spare wormies left over so we emptied out the old worm farm, finding some gorgeous vermicast in the bottom and started over. Fingers crossed the message will get out about what we can and can't feed them and they'll go from strength to strength. Look out St. Jo's I'm gonna come and check up on them when I'm over!

Reuse, Compost and Enviroschools Action Projects in Makarora

It had been a little while since I'd been to see Makarora Primary School and there were lots of things I wanted to do with them, so in the spirit of keeping traveling down I booked two whole days with them to deliver the Zero Waste Education Reuse and Compost modules in the mornings and the afternoons were spent on Enviroschools action project planning.

I've delivered the Reuse module a few times now so that was pretty laid back, no surprises there. However, it was the first time I've delivered the compost module, so in my usual fashion was a little nervous about delivering it for the first time. All was fine. The children were awesome and as I expected from children at a rural school it wasn't the first time they'd heard about compost.

We made some awesome piggy banks and desk tidies and the mini composts in the milk bottles were awesome. I can't wait to hear if the worms get to work and break down all the compostable material we put in there.

With the mornings taken care of we spent the afternoons working on some ideas for future action projects. The school is really embracing being part of Enviroschools. Lynley is using the kit and EfS to help structure next years curriculum. A large part of this is to involve the community of Makarora in the work that goes on at school.

We all sat down and discussed the different ideas that the children would like to see happen at school. This ranged from bike tracks to eadible gardens. After we had identified each of the projects that we'd like to start we considered the costs, ease of implementation, who could help us and who else it would benefit. The children now have a fair bit of work to do in passing this information onto their community and getting feedback on what they would like to be done.

It was so good to them all getting so enthused by the idea of being able to take action themselves to help enhance their school environment, not only for themselves but for their community. Keep a look out on here for news of projects developing. They will also be starting a blog soon to showcase what they are up to, there will be a link on here of course.