Yr 6 Sponge cities

 

Our Year 6's continue to look at the importance of our local estuaries with a lesson borrowed from Sustainable Schools

Our last lesson focussed on how estuaries are habitats for animals.  This time we were thinking about how our estuaries are important for humans living in cities.

We began by discovering how Matauranga Maori weaved an understanding of the water cycle into the stories of Atua.  Next we reviewed the water cycle.

Afterwards we experimented to see how water travels in cities.  We compared grey infrastructure like gutters, concreate and drain with green infrastructure like lawns, parks and wetlands.  We discovered green soaks up water and grey lets water flow fast.  So parks, wetlands and lawns are important acting like a sponge and preventing floods. We need sponge cities!