Students paint the storm water grates

Room 2 Children Paint The Grates

The students wanted to paint the grates with sea creatures to remind people and students that it is very important that rubbish is not put down the grates. Their message is that we must take care to keep our rivers and seas pollution free. Look after the sea. The children explained to the rest of the school why they are doing the paintings.

 

Irrigation

March 2013

Our Irrigation programme has begun. Mr Rodney Walton (Parent/plumber) is working to collect water from the Rms 1,2 & 3 roof. This water will be used to irrigate our Native Tree area during the long hot summer months. Every Summer we lose a tree or two because of lack of water.

 

Milk Bottles Collected to Make a Hot House

Mr Rodley kindly offered to lead a group of students in building a hot house out of plastic milk bottles.  Term one saw milk bottles by the 100s arriving at Netherton School.

 

Room 2 make friendship bread

The smell of Friendship Bread cooking in the oven made Mrs Mitchell and Mrs Adams feel very hungry. The children of Room 2 worked in groups to make 4 loaves of this bread. The bread took 10 days to grow. Every day we fed our bread or we stirred it. At last it was ready to be made into bread and cooked. We thought the bread was

delicious.

 

The Hill

 The Hill

This term it was too dry to plant the hill. Dondy came in with his digger and landscaped the hill for us. He also got some huge rocks and placed them on the hill. Next term we will plant the hill with grasses and flax. The hill has now been renamed as The Wild Area.

 

Monarch Butterflies

Kaitlyn Coldicutt and  Jordan Keeys did an outstanding job this term at  looking after the monarch butterflies. When the caterpillars got quite big they would transfer them into the shade house which they kept supplied with fresh swan plants. The swan plants were planted in to pots this year and they were kept rotating so that there was always plenty of food. The caterpillars were put into the shade house and shut in so that they would go in to their chrysalis in a safe place. Once the butterfly hatched it was left untouched for 12 hours and then it was carefully put in to the butterfly garden, where there was a lot of orange dahlia, orange zinnia for it to drink the nectar from. We also have these flowers growing in the shade house so the butterfly doesn’t go hungry waiting to be freed. There are also  a lot of swan plant growing around the school. This year the girls would have freed over 100 Monarch butterflies. Very few butterflies were damaged.

A Fantastic Effort!!

 

Our new penny farthing bike

A Cartwheel is turned into a Penny Farthing Bike

It was decided to create a penny farthing bike out of objects lying around at home. We were given the large cart wheel to start with. The handles are handles from off an old lawn mower. The seat was carved out of wood. The pedals were off an old bike and the small wheel at the back was in Mrs Walker’s garden. Mrs Walker got her neighbour Mr Williams to do the welding and Mr Walker came up with many of the ideas. We love this bike in our school garden and it always has children riding on it.

 

Introducting Nude Food

What is Nude Food?

Renee and Olivia are performing a skit in assembly about Nude Food. They are making the students aware how important it is to reduce waste by refusing to buy foods that come with excess packaging. We are encouraging children to use reusable packaging in their lunch boxes. We want to send less rubbish to the landfill.

Term 2 : Every Wednesday will be Nude Food Day

 

Sustainable Communities

Sustainable Communities

·       Continue planting our Native tree area

·       Continue planting our fruit trees.

·       Continue planting our kitchen garden (Perma culture)

·       Continue developing the hill “Our Wild Area”

·       Continue developing the “Hikataia Cut”

·       Catching rain water from rooms 1, 2 & 3 for irrigation purposes. A $5000 grant from Enviro Waikato has allowed this to happen.

·       The drain outside the school on School Road has been culverted and filled in. A much safer environment and creates a much bigger parking area.

·       Visiting places around Hamilton to assist with our learning eg. Hukanui school to learn about their “Living Room” especially as the Netherton Hall is looking to be relocated on to the school grounds. Also the Hamilton gardens to learn more about Perma-culture

·       Keeping the wider community informed by newsletter and setting up an Enviro Blog.

·       Re-using plastic milk bottles to create a hot house. (Mr Rodley to lead)

·       Tracking our journey. This power point is on the server and needs to be added to each term.

·       Nude Food Day every Wednesday starting from Term 2 2013

Maori Perspectives

Maori Perspectives

·       A Native area has been created at the back of the school and this is constantly been added to.

·       Our School Learning Journals are called “Te Ara Tika “ which translates as “The Path to New Learning”

·       Celebrations include “Tikanga Maori day” All children get to experience a boil up meal and fried bread.

·       Matariki is celebrated. We plant trees down at the “Hikataia Cut”

·       Te Reo is part of our school learning.

·       The school houses are named after the local rivers in our area.

Piako, Waihou, Ohinemuri, and Waikato

·       All children at Netherton school learn the school pepeha

·       We have a carved Maori sign that welcomes people to Netherton school and all students know who carved this sign and why it is so important to us.

·       Plan a noho Marae at Tutureinga Marae (Te Puna) for the whole school

·       Learn appropriate waiata for noho marae and school production.

·       Teachers use greetings and classroom demands using Te Reo.

Respect for the Diversity of people and nature

Respect for the Diversity

Of People and Nature

·       A butterfly garden has been created with flowers that we know the monarch butterfly enjoys getting nectar from.

·       Swan plants have been planted in pots this year so that they can provide food for a longer season for the monarch caterpillar. The swan plants a rotated as they are required. Big caterpillars are taken from the out door plants each day and placed in to the shade house, so that when they go into a cocoon they can be kept safe and therefore the butterfly is very healthy when it comes out.

·       A weta home has been built and put back in the trees where we know weta live. Recent sightings suggest that the weta has returned.

·       We have rules regarding the back of our school to ensure the safety of our young plants.

·       At Netherton school we celebrate our cultural diversity. Each nationality in our school has painted a “pou” that tells us about their country. A clear file telling their story has been made and kept in the foyer for parents and visitors to our school to look at.

·       Children care for 2 beehives as the bee in N.Z. is under threat. Honey is used in the kitchen and our fruit trees will benefit from good pollination. Children want to explore more what they can do with the honey.

·       Foods of the World Day, held Term 2 2013

Learning for sustainabilaty

Learning for Sustainability

·       Learn about our environment. Inquiry for 2013 “Free the Sea”

·       Students speak passionately about their enviro programme and their school to both adults and children from other schools.

·       We grow seeds and plants

·       Beginning a perma-culture vege garden this year.

·       Room 2 hatching chickens in class room this year (July) as part of perma-culture garden.

Empowered students

Empowered Students

·       Students are free to speak

·       Students are empowered to do jobs around the school.

·       Students, staff and Enviro facilitators plan the vision and enviro programme each year.

·       Students created a harakeke classroom with absolutely no assistance from staff.

·       Students identified a shabby garden shed and set about re-painting it with no help or suggestion from staff.

·       Students thought up the idea of running a school picnic and koi carp fishing day down at the “Hikataia Cut”

·       Students very successfully ran the Monach butterfly release programme. Over 100 butterflies were released this year from Netherton School.

Mrs Paterson joins the Enviro Team

Term 1 2013

Welcome Mrs Paterson to our Enviro Team. It made all the children very happy to have Mrs Paterson working with us on our Enviro journey. We hope she enjoys the experience.

 

Our program for 2013

Our Enviro Programme For 2013

·       Ensure operating sustainable practises are continued at Netherton School.

·       Continue developing our Native area, Hill, Butterfly garden and Musical garden.

·       Endeavour to have our raised vege gardens  producing all year round and all produce from the gardens to be used in good Nutritional programmes.

·       Pot Luck Tea “Foods of the World” (Celebrating our Cultural Diversity)

·       Enviro students and Lead teachers to meet early in the year with Kevin Campbell to discuss more development down at the “Cut”

a)    Fresh water

b)   Jetty

·       Meetings to be held regularly (assembly) to ensure all new students and staff understand the sustainable operating practises in our school.

·       Continue supporting other schools on their enviro journey.

·       Catching water from Junior Block  roof. This will be the beginning of a school irrigation system.  Environment Waikato kindly gave us a grant of $5000 towards this project.

·       Strengthen ties with Community and local experts from DOC to help us create an ecological corridor. Corridors are set up to allow birds, sinks and insects to move through the area without undue stress. If this is created it would bring the Native birdlife back in to Netherton school.

·       Enviro team, lead teachers,  BOT and interested community members to visit Hukanui school to learn about their “Living Room” especially as our hall gets closer to moving onto our school sight. Emphasis on Energy.

·       Later in the year invite Robyn Irving (Sustainability Facilitator) to our staff meeting to explore the awards reflective process with staff.

·       A suggestion for school wide study at some stage during 2013 is “Free the Sea” This is an inquiry based educational resource aimed to inspire students to use our Inquiry Tree to explore our oceans, the issues that impact them and take action to “Free the Sea”

·       Perma Culture design system for our school Vege garden using natural ecosystems

·       By the beginning of Term 4 we will be ready to go for Green/Gold

Enviro Group 2013