Year 4 Explore our new Hot Compost System at Waka

 Today, Year 4 looked at our new system for dealing with all food waste at Wakaaranga.  Thanks to a generous grant from the Mana Ora Climate Resilience Fund, we were 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. This also stops our scraps going to landfill where they turn into greenhouse gases that are helping to cause climate change.

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. We all had a chance to feel the heat coming off the compost. All the billions of fungus, bacteria and invertebrates in the compost cause it to heat up which in turn causes it to break down faster.  We'll get compost in 3 months instead of 12 months.

 

We'll use the compost on our food gardens.  Then we'll put the scraps in the hot composters and the whole cycle starts again.  That's sustainable - no waste and no nasty gases or chemical fertilisers.

To review our new system, we created a cut-and-paste flow chart.  

Lastly, we did a Kahoot to test our knowledge.

We can't wait to get started!

Year 1 Continue with Kiki Kiwi and friends

 

Today we learnt more about Kiki Kiwi and The Travelling Trash.

Did you know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? 

Well, it is what happens to rubbish in our ocean as currents carry it and it ends up in this area. This is what happened to the blue plastic bag in our story.

We took action by looking for litter around our school. We found that most of the litter that we picked up came from our lunch boxes. Hmmmm, what can we do about this? We discussed different options, like putting the plastic chip packet in the right bin. But the BEST way is not to bring the rubbish to school in the first place! 

We made a display to help us be mindful of the litter in our school.

Please bring a litter-free lunch box to school to help our oceans.

Year 3 Explore our Waka heiheis

Why do we keep chickens?

Our heiheis (chickens) help us break down our biodegradable waste into nutrient-rich soil, just like our worms and new hot compost.

Unlike our worm farms and Hot compost, Heiheis give us eggs, and they have great personalities too. 

Thinking about our taxonomy lesson, we can classify them as birds. Because they have feathers.

What do we already know?

Lilly- They need a place to perch.

Ottis- They eat seeds and grass.

Emile- They need space to forage.

Suvini- They have wings but can't fly very far.

Eden - Chickens give us eggs.

Robyn - They have a life cycle.

Year 3 are chicken experts; today they went on a chicken scavenger hunt to learn more about our feathered friends.

Lastly, we helped mulch our Native bush walk. We found heaps of FBI!

Look at all the litter we found around the school!

Thank you Year 3, for all your Mahi!

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: