Enviro School
Wow we have achieved the Bronze Award August 2018!
27th August 2018, saw us working with Lauree Jones, Enviroschools Regional Coordinator & Facilitator.
We looked at: our journey so far, how we have been working on the Enviroschools Guiding Principles and Kaupapa. and how we have embedded these into what we do at Ratapiko School.
We celebrated the successes, what the children have achieved and also all the hard work the children have done in driving the sustainable practices that are now 'what we do here!'
The children were amazing, talking and reflecting on the process and creating a tree which captured all the evidence we have created. The children also set some next steps and we will share those with you all soon.
So proud of what we have achieved. Thanks must also go to all the parents and the community who have supported us in our endeavours with time, resources and ideas too. Thanks!
We have been on a journey to become an Enviro School and we received the news that we have been accepted as an Enviroschool in 2017! As part of our journey we talked about what it would mean to be an Enviroschool? and What we would want to achieve as a school to make our environment sustainable?
The children set about looking at our school and thinking about what we already doing and what we would like to do! At the beginning of our journey we visited Marco School (in February, 2017) who have been on the Enviroschool journey for many years already to see what could be achieved! On coming back to school we sat down and decided what we would like to do...
The children wanted to:
have a vegetable garden,
develop a Monarch caterpillar garden
make jams and chutneys from our own produce
grow our own fruit trees,
build a pizza oven,
continue our paper / plastic recycling work
have a worm farm
have a clean environment
plant trees to bring other birds to our school i.e. Kereru,
We also have been working closely with the Department of Conservation (DoC) after our failed trip to Mt Taranaki in 2017. DoC invited us to help grow Meal Worms for the Black Robin that were released on the Maunga in April 2018. We have helped to plant 150 trees at the Everett Road Park now for the past two years (2017-2018).
As the year progresses we evaluate what we have achieved. Some of our goals are a work in progress. We have had some success and some problems...
Some of the learning so far...
In 2017 sadly our vegetable garden was visited by a rabbit and so in 2018 we will need to be more prepared.
The Monarch Caterpillars came too late and did not become butterflies... we now have two more established plants.
We have an established worm farm and we were awarded a Fonterra Grassroots Grant which we are utilising to buy fruit trees to begin our own orchard!
We also had fruit donated and were able to make plum jam and feijoa chutney from to sell and the profits will allow us to but new seedlings and seeds to grow our own vegetable seedlings to plant out this growing season.
Projects on the go at the moment are...
- collecting 1.5 litre Coke /Sprite and Schweppes bottles to make a bottle house and we are making our pizza oven in Term 4 with the help of Marco and Waitoriki Schools.
