Taking cuttings from our rosemary plants

Wearing masks and gloves when we are using potting mix

Yum yum. What will we do with these?

The Year Sevens have completed their enviro inquiry. The process and their final result s and reflections can be seen on their blogs. Many have embedded their slideshows into their blogs for your viewing and feedback.
There was a lot of problem solving in real contexts with many hours spent with paint, soil, wood and researching on computers. You will start to see some of their projects around the school. For some, the scope and time frames for the implementation of their solutions were too large, however reflection was a key part of this inquiry and I'm sure many would do it differently if given another chance.

Scroll down the right side of the class pages to view blogs from R10 students and R11 students

Room 3 has completed an inquiry into bird feeders. They have trialed different food sources for the birds in our playground.




Here are the bird feeders, not to mention some gorgeous shots of our playground in the autumn. I'm sure the birds will be grateful for the extra food when winter comes.

Our inquiries are going well. There is such a range of topics and lots of interesting things starting to happen. Some of us are still problem solving, lots of trial and error. The photos below show two students who have researched weed control for our garden and decided that newspaper was the most cost efficient and easiest to implement. Another student is taking apart an old bike so that the wheel can be used as part of a plant support (watch this space for later developments in this).

Bottom right are a group who are recycling plastic bottles and painting them to be bird feeders, bird houses and watering cans. Another group are in the process of drawing an enlargement grid for a mural made out of recyclable plastics. And this is just some of them...............

Use this slide link for an inquiry presentation guide
Use this link to help you give feedback

We had to pick our apples, so we thought we would have a taste but also use them to learn about our Earth and the small amount of productive space there is. Click on the activity below to see what we did.

Earth as an Apple

We are well on our way with our inquiries, with several groups almost ready to get going with the action section. It has taken us a while to get to this stage, but the thinking and discussion behind their ideas has been invaluable.

Students have learnt to;

1. State their problem clearly within question framework based on the Future Problem Solving model. "Because...........how might we..........so that..................................
2. They have researched a list of ideas, and have had to come up with at least ten possible solutions. This has meant that they have had to make sure that they have thought outside the square and gone beyond their initial idea. Many have surprised themselves by coming up with creative and fun concepts that will be achievable within term 2.

Watch this space as some of the action plans start to take shape. 

Last week was lots of fun, we sowed carrot, parsley and beetroot seeds, potted up the cuttings we got from Mrs. K next door and did a bit more weeding. We didn't get very far in our inquiry about solving some of the garden problems, but we'll save that for next week.
We also learnt that there are dangerous organisms in the potting mix and that we need to cover our mouths and noses when using it, particularly when it is dry.

After our big clean up, we needed a plan about what to do next in the garden area. We produced a brainstorm and came up with these ideas. Our next steps are to add to these ideas and get into groups and make action plans.

Working together

 Two classes of students have worked together to clear the weeds that had grown over the summer. It was hard work, but we learnt all about the types of weeds (some of them), how to pull them out so that we got them by the roots as well as learning a bit about the tools that we needed.
Here are R10 and R11 working hard.

Getting Started

The first step to ensure that we start something sustainable was re-establishing the composting systems throughout the whole school. It had to start on day one when teachers and students were deciding the classroom duties. Each class assigned a monitor to carry the bucket at the end of lunchtime to the school compost bins. Students from team kahu ensure that there is no plastic and help the younger ones to wash the buckets.