Year Four Learn from a Marine Biologist

Today, Jess from the Young Ocean Explorers visited Year Four.  We were amazed to learn about Jess' career as a marine biologist working with Kelly Tarltons.  One career highlight was helping to save a three flippered turtle called Waiwai Toru. Jess also worked with NanoGirl and now is continuing her science education pathway with the Young Ocean Explorers. 

Jess gave a fascinating presentation that included a quiz, videos, a smoke machine and even giant bubbles. We were able to explore how animals communicate with sound under the sea and hunt with air.

What did you find out, Year 4?

"A sperm whale is the loudest animal" Qiurui

Diamond "A killer whale is stronger than a shark"

"Orcas eat stingrays" Kayden

"The turtle Waiwai Toru lost a flipper" Evelyn

Eiden "Sea creatures make lots of sounds"

"Herrings talk by farting" Luke

"The front of the sperm whale's head is called a melon" Amy

"How sound moves through water." Margot

We were sad to hear that while 30% of land is protected in NZ, only 0.38% of the sea is protected.  What could we do to protect more of the sea?

"Build a robot to clean up rubbish. We've been working on that in digi.

Special drains that can't let rubbish out or in

Use a magnet that attracts the rubbish

Make more marine reserves

Put posters up that we make

Write letters to the Prime Minister

Call DOC 0800 DOCHOT if you find a sick animal on the beach."

Three tamariki who were listening really well won prizes!

Rooms 24 & 25 were lucky enough to have extra time with Jess where we delved deeper into ecosystems, especially the ecosystem of a rock pool.

Firstly,

we had to guess what we were holding....

Next, we consolidated our knowledge with a Kahoot.

Next time, we're going to make posters to promote litter-free lunches.

Year 4 Investigate What Our Kura Can Do

Do you remember when we wrote to the Prime Minister?  Well he didn't take them in person, but he did send a video reply.

Today we wondered how our kura can further help the sea.

We read a play about some Eco Awards. How did the children help their school environment?

Bryn: "Eat less meat."

Millie: "Bike to work or school."

Gayanuka: "Stop littering."

We wondered if litter was still a problem at our kura ...

After collecting rubbish from around our kura for just 10 minutes, we came back to analyse the data.

In 10 minutes, Room 26 collected:

Plastic pieces = 202

Paper = 76

organic = 22

random = 10

What do we think about this?

Henry: "I think Waka can do better."

Grayson: "It's horrible because we collected a lot in such a short time."

Elora: "This is really bad for life, sea and everywhere."

Midhush: "It's bad for the ocean because then the wind blows it to the drains."

Theo: "I saved 3 plastic bags that were heading for the drain!"

The category we had the most of was plastic.

When we looked even closer....

we realised the plastic had come from our lunchboxes!

How can we solve this problem?

Maddison: "Unwrap the muesli bar at home."

Leo: "I use a sustainable cupcake holder for my crackers etc."

Isabel: "Just bring a litter-free lunch!"

Room 23 collected litter from each lunch eating area and compared:

Maia: "There's the most rubbish in the Year 3 and 4 area"

"The Year 3 and four rubbish pieces might just be bigger" 

"Most of the litter in the Year 2 area was small" Bryn

"The litter comes from lunchboxes" 

What can we do?

Make posters for litterfree lunchboxes

Make a commercial 

Make a video about can happen if we make rubbish

Send a letter to the people who make Glad Wrap telling them not to make it and send a letter to supermarkets asking them not to sell it.

Make a booklet about litterfree lunches

Put reminders around the school about litter

Send notices to all of the parents for litterfree lunch boxes

Show how much litter is collected per year so people will reduce

Ask Ms Von to have a litterfree lunch day each week.

Awards for the tidiest area

Have a daily litter pick up

We read an interesting article about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Plastic-Free Challenge - school journal Level 2

Room 24 discovered the drain by their classroom as FULL of litter.  How sad! That leads straight to the sea.  We worked with Ms Daniel to clean it all out.  How can we stop this happening?  We decided to make posters to encourage more children to bring litter free lunches.

Room 25 were amazed at the big pile of rubbish collected, even after 3 other classes had already collected litter around the school. We divided the rubbish into 3 piles. The biggest pile was definitely the plastic brought in from home in our lunchboxes. 

Lots to think about. 

Remember: "When we know better, we can do better!"

Our Mara Kai Problem

Our Eco Warriors noticed  that the carrots in our Mara Kai are small this year and the soil is like concrete when we're trying to dig up our kumara.

What is the problem? Our gardens need good compost but we can't put food scraps in the compost bins as we're scared of the smells and the rats so there's just leaves in there.

Our worm farms don't really make compost and we can't put all the food scraps in there.

Also we are sending lots of food waste to the land fill "It makes methane gas" said Esther.  "That's making a blanket around the earth that's making it hotter said Luke.

 Ruby and Madi “Put Pestfree Howick rat traps around the compost and use our lunchbox scraps”

“A glass cage aroud the compost” Max 

Paige “Have a fundraiser for new compost”

We decided to get the help of Cate from Sustainable Schools to help and look at what other schools are doing.  We saw Sunnyhills School had hot composters that take all food waste on You Tube and Cate said we could get funding from Mana Ora, as our compost solution will help to address climate change.

We are going to work together on the funding application.

Eco Warriors Present at the Pestival

 Our Eco Warriors shared how we do Education for Sustainability at Wakaaranga at the Howick “Pestival”. They received Bronze Certificates for their involvement in the Pest Cadets Programme.  Thank you to the Howick Local Board, Pestfree Howick and all those who attended this wonderful community event.

https://youtu.be/IG8CWnPHev4?si=5xUgEdqMda67hzXf 

Year Four Feeling Kind and a response from the Prime Minister from our letters.

Today Year Four finished off their letters for the Prime Minister advocating for more marine reserves. 

UPDATE: the PM responded to our letters! The Young Ocean Explorers took about 3000 letters down and presented them to parliament. You can read about it here.

https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=181121

Here is Prime Minister Luxon's response.

 https://vimeo.com/1207547312/9dc7cc4ccb?fl=ip&fe=ec&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8dwlZE8aqfnaShQTJ5OyoowpqTcyrAn-rpRBOROjE9joeAMJ5qaS_T_QMYzJMmaiV6Z9s3kObk8ZxkWwyzaTrCgVGbauHmApfVhjUkGerWx3Pr2U4&_hsmi=29826914&utm_content=29826914&utm_source=hs_email

Afterwards, we worked with Claire from the Youth Project.  We're not just taking action to be kind to the ocean, but also thinking about how we can be kind to our community too. Everyone worked hard to create keyrings for the neighbours of our school.  We wanted to acknowledge how patient and supportive they are, even when we are a bit noisy and create busy roads in the mornings and afternoons.

Neighbours, look out in your letterboxes!