Year 2 Talk about where our food scraps should go

 

Year 2 are learning about our new systems for dealing with food waste.

What can we do with food scraps?

Jiya "Put them in the food waste bin"

"Throw it in the green bin" Olive

"Use it to put on the compost to turn into dirt" Zoey

"Throw it in the food scrap bin and it goes to the worms" Jacob

"Put them in your garden to make plants grow and feed the worms" Jehan

Is it a good idea to throw your food scraps in the normal rubbish bin?

"They're not rubbish" Charlie

Janaya "The food scraps are not waste"

"No because it will go to landfill. It can't turn into soil." Callum

"We  won't have any food for the worms" Mason

What excellent prior knowledge! 

We looked at our brand new hot composters in the Mara Kai.  We can't wait to start putting our food scraps in the buckets next week. Next we watched a video from our Eco Leaders: 

Lastly read "The Soil in Jachie's Garden" and drew our own gardens.

Year 3 Dive into our New Hot Compost

 Today Year 3 looked at our new system for dealing with all food waste at Wakaaranga.  Thanks to a very generous grant from the Mana Ora Climate Resilience Fund we have been able to purchase Hot Composters from the Carbon Cycle Company.

The great thing about our new composters is that they can convert ALL FOOD SCRAPS into compost for our gardens.

The Eco Warriors made a video to explain how the new composting system works and what we need to do:

Afterwards, we visited the new hot composters.  Then we did a Kahoot and created a cut-and-paste flow chart to review.  We can't wait to get started next week!

Year 1 learn with Kiki kiwi and Friends

Did you know that all outside stormwater drains lead to the ocean?

Year 1 learnt about our new Hot Compost System that was put in today. We also read about Kiki Kiwi and The Travelling Trash.

We went on a litter hunt and filled an entire bucket with litter. When we looked at the litter, it was mainly from our lunch boxes. 

When we were out scouting for rubbish, we noticed the stormwater drains all around our school. Lots of them had rubbish from lunchboxes in them. This made us sad, as we now know that the stormwater drains go straight out to Wakaaranga Creek, then out to the Tamaki Estuary.

Freddy the fish taught us a song to help us remember. "That Only Rain goes down the Storm drain."

Please help Wakaaranga by bringing a litter-free lunch. 

Kiki Kiwi says, "Do the right thing."

Hot Compost with the Carbon Cycle Company

Thanks to a very generous Mana Ora Youth Resilience Fund Grant, today we were able to get HOT COMPOSTERS from The Carbon Cycle Company.

Tim and Rodrigo came to help the Eco Warriors build the composters and to tell us more about how composting works.

Everyone worked hard even in the rain to level the metal frames and slide in the wooden sides. Next we layered up brown mulch with green scraps to form our first compost starter.

ALL food waste can go in these very special composters.  HOORAY!

Watch this video to see how our system will run:

Photos with the Eco Warriors:

 

Pekapeka with Year 5 & 6

 Today Year Six started a new mystery topic.  We learnt that when scientists classify animals it is called taxonomy. We began by studying the similarities between a mystery skeleton and a human skeleton.

Did you know that all animals can be separated into two groups - vertebrates and invertebrates?

We could see a backbone so the mystery animals was a vertebrate.

We discovered the mystery skeleton was a bat.  We're going to study them because Peter and Zahara from Pestfree Howick said they live close by. We want to know how to protect this unique species.

"A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce and have off spring that can reproduce" 

What did we find out?

"Bats are the only mammals that can fly" 

"They use echo location to hunt" - we played a game to show how this works.

"Bats have similar bones to humans" 

 "All species have latin names."

Room 18 had time to do a crossword too.

What did we learn from the article and interview?

Cairo "A senior scientist's nick name is Bat Man"

"NZ bats are endangered" Payton

Max "There are bat flies that live on the back on the bats and eat their poop"

Zimon "Some bats live in Fjord land and Milford Sound" 

"The short tailed bat pollinates the wood rose" Andrew

We watched, read, played a fitness game and reviewed with a Kahoot. Next time we're looking forward to taking action to protect our unique bats.

Room 18 had time to do a crossword too.

Year 5 think about how to share their knowledge over 2 sessions

 We brainstormed ways to share what we learned in our Travelwise Ready, Steady Go learning.

We are going to create picture books to share what we have learnt about how active travel helps the environment and our bodies, and how to be safe when we're getting to school.

It was great fun folding up our mini books and using our creative skills.

Lastly, we shared our knowledge with classrooms 1 and 10.