Our Circular Economy - Harvesting our Pears and Plums

 At Wakaaranga we try to reduce our waste by converting our biodegradable rubbish like fruit scraps into compost.  We the use the compost to grow more kai.  

Today Mr Dowden told Ms Everit and Ms Daniel that the pears and plums were ready to pick.  The filled two baskets and a shopping bag off just two trees.

The fruit will be ready to eat next week.  We're looking forward to taste testing and creating poetry inspired by our senses.

Year 6 Upcycle

 

Today Year 6 thought about the impact that fast fashion is having on the environment. 

What could be the impact?

"Fashion trends last two seconds then die and no one wears the clothes anymore" Taylor

"Clothes made out of bad materials like animals" Ethan

"People who make the clothes don't get good rights" William

Jaden "Using animal products"

"Manufacturing could make pollution" Advik

Jaden "Uses machinery"

 Did you know fashion is the biggest polluter after fossil fuels? We followed the life cycle of your cotton t-shirts by watching this video: 

Next, we thought about how we can reduce our impact by making choices about clothing:

AJ "Buy less clothes"

Cooper "Go to op shops"

Liam "Turn them into a bag or cleaning cloth"

Amin "Wash clothes less"

Blake "Buy organic cotton"

Then we upcycled our old t-shirts to make tote bags.

Afterward, we got creative making sustainable wrapping paper, cards, and tags. 

Year 2 Investigate Super Seagulls

Rooms 8,9 and 29 listened to the story Celia Seagull by Nicole Miller.

We thought of ways that we could help reduce the amount of plastic in our ocean:

Naira, "We can recycle."

Holly, "Whenever we are about to chuck something away we can look at it, and  maybe we could use it for craft?"

Milly, "We can put plastic in the right bin."

Oliver,  "We can reuse things like paper... use both sides."

Rosemary, "We put rubbish in the correct bins."

Suvini, "We can pick up rubbish floating in the sea with a net."

Grayson, "We need to make sure the rubbish doesn't go down the storm drain."

Pierina,  "When we go fishing, we can pick up litter in the sea."

Amy, "Tell people to stop littering."

Collins, "We you go to the beach.... Take 3 for the see!"

Leo, "When you go to the beach take a rubbish bag with you."

Archer, "Put rubbish in the bin."

Amber, "Don't be lazy and throw rubbish in the drain."

Ryder, "Ask mum and dads to pack you food that doesn't have food around it."

Elora, "Stop using plastic bottles, instead use glass or metal so you can use it 

over and over again. "

Margoh, "Reuse our drink bottles over again."

Baylee, "We could pick up litter RIGHT NOW!"

 We talked about how we can REFUSE plastic in the first place, 

so that it doesn't get into our ocean.

We drew our 3 different types of New Zealand Seagulls.

We went on a litter hunt to make sure none of our own 

Wakaaranga litter goes down the stormwater drains and out to the ocean.

Lastly, we mulched our native tree walk, to protect soil moisture and feed the trees.

Year 4 explore how to be kaitiaki for our Hauraki Gulf

 Today Year 4 learnt about the plastic problem for our moana.  Soon there will be more plastic in the sea than fish and it doesn't breakdown.  We looked to see if Wakaaranga Year Fours were contributing to the plastic problem by studying our lunchboxes.

Congratulations to the 17/59 tamariki who brought a litterfree lunch to school today from Rooms 13 & 14.  Also congratulations to the 27/61 tamariki who brought a litterfree lunch to school today from Rooms 24 & 23.

We held a prize draw to reward their extra effort.

Next we added up the litter pieces.

Room 14 would be bringing 250 pieces per week.  That's 2500 a term and 10 000 pieces of litter per year!

Room 13 would be bringing 240 pieces of a litter a week. That's 2400 per term and 9 600 pieces of litter per year!

We went on a litter hunt and found that indeed lots of litter was escaping out of our lunchboxes.  

We thought about creating our own change campaign. Some ideas included:

1+ a day campaign

Poster encouraging picking up rubbish

Convince people to bring a litter free lunch with ...being a good role model, having a hui with a presentation, showing free lunch examples, putting up posters, writing a speech and presenting it

We split into groups to create our 'change campaigns".

 The data we collected:

Class	Total litter items	Litter free lunches
Room 13	48	9/29
Room  14	50	8/30
Room 23	54	15/31
Room 24	45	12 / 30

Worm tea for every tree

 At Waka, we are working towards being a zero-waste school.  We encourage

 litter-free lunches and feed our lunchbox scraps to the worm farms.

Our Waka worms turn the scraps into fertiliser full of microorganisms vital for plants and trees to grow. Today Rooms 13 and 28 diluted the 'worm tea' and fed all our plants and trees.

Privilege in a Sustainable World

 

Year Rima are exploring how we can create a peaceful sustainable world that is FAIR for all.

We conducted this experiment to start thinking about privilege: 

Year 5's thoughts on the game:

FROM THE FRONT

You had to try and if you didn't get it in you had to be happy because you tried

It was for me because I was in the front and I had the skills

Too easy

It was fun

I felt good like I was winning

It was a great fun

I felt happy

IN THE MIDDLE

It was a bit challenging but if you work hard you get it in

I got close

You need to keep trying 

FROM THE BACK

It wasn't fair 

It wasn't fair there were things in the way

It's not fair.  We're back here and some people were way at the front.

It's a dumb

I didn't even bother to try.

It wasn't fair

Under privileged people aren't having their basic needs met.  To understand basic needs we were asked to write a list of 20 items we would take to live on a desert island.  Afterwards we analysed our lists to see if they contained items that would provide - shelter, food, water, medicine and clothing.

Next we explored the differences in the way children around the world live and we discussed our opinions on poverty.

We realised we already help those less fortunate with our Christmas Food Bank and supporting our Unicef Child Doreen.

Now there is a new intiative.