This term the focus is all things compost, we plan to revolutionise the way composting happens at South End School. We are building a composting lab where we can perform composting experiments, monitor the rates of decomposition and the record changes in the heat of the pile over time. We have been inspired by the edible schoolyard in Berkeley California.
Read MorePrevious Curious Minds funding allowed students to develop a blueprint for turning an empty rural school field into a sustainable science and agricultural learning hub. The initial research and planning phase is coming to an end, the logical next step in our project is to challenge students to explain how the school farm and science hub they have designed will enable science and technology to be investigated.
Read MoreToday the kids chose from 3 activities. Threshing lavender to make lavender bags that will eventually be sold on our online store or at the Carterton Farmers Market as part of Earth Schools sustainable enterprise. In the coming weeks we will learn about propagation and propagate our own lavender.
Read MoreToday we talked about how we can reduce our plastic waste. Some kids have lunchboxes that require no plastic wrap but these options can be costly so we decided to make our own. We found a pattern for a fabric lunch bag that wasn't too tricky and started turning our recycled fabric into lunch bags. We plan to give each child one and eventually make enough to sell on our online store (coming soon!)
Read MoreToday we talked to the kids about bees. We learned about the characteristics of native New Zealand bees verses introduced bees and talked about pollination, bee anatomy, life cycles, bee hives and the kids got to sample some beeswax from Emilie's hives.
The students then had the opportunity to choose to make reusable bee wax food wraps, learn more about bee anatomy, or learn how to propagate lavender with Tom.
Read MoreToday Earth School students had the opportunity to choose from 3 different activities. As part of our sustainable enterprise theme, we are experimenting with upcycling different materials to create new products. Today we talked about plastic and why we need to reduce our consumption of single use plastic bags. We then made skipping ropes out of used plastic bags by cutting it into strips then twisting it using a hand drill.
Read MoreWe were so proud of the kids for presenting and singing at the Earth School Finale!
The evening started with haka lead by Shae and Joe, then the SES singing group students sung, I Am The Earth (- music & lyrics by Glyn Lehmann) led and accompanied by Rosa Dew on piano (at that point there was not a dry eye in the audience).
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