Year 3 Investigate the Gross World of the FBI

 Today, Year 3 learnt about the incredibly important, but gross job that fungus, bacteria and invertebrates (FBI) do for our world.

Akhi "They make compost"

Ibaad "They make compost out of food scraps".

"Bugs  are super heroes because they turn dead stuff into soil." Robin

We talked about how all our food comes from the soil, so we need the FBI to keep turning dead stuff and scraps into nutrients for our soil.  

We went on a discovery walk to see where we could see evidence of the FBI at work.

Alex "I saw a rotten banana peel in the worm farm."

"I saw black mushrooms in the native bush walk growing on a tree."

"I saw a orange mushrooms and a worm." Robin

"I saw red fungus" Hala

"We saw the stink horns and when they grow they die a  few days later. They have red tentacles and they have black inside.  They smell stinky." James

"I saw a rotten log" Kaida

Back at the classroom we did some more research on the amazing red stinkhorn fungus we found.  Did you know the reason they stink is that they attract flies to spread their spores?

Afterwards we dug in our Mara Kai to see invertebrates and to see if there were any kumara left.

Our International Visitors get a Taste of New Zealand

 

Our international students and their NZ buddies had a fabulous time today experiencing our Education for Sustainability programme. 

They visited the orchards, the whare heihei (chicken house), 

bee hives (they were all asleep) and we also dug around in our Mara Kai (food garden). The tamariki dug up lots of kumara (Maori sweet potato). We actually think we dug up the world's largest kumara!

Afterwards, we juiced some tangelos from Ms Everitt's tree and ate some kumara, which Ms Daniel had roasted at home. What a delicious way to experience how we care for our planet at Wakaaranga.