Eco Warrioirs doing the Mahi

 Our eco-warriors have been working hard sorting the chip packets Waka families have collected. 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our collection. Please remember to hand your packets in opened and washed. 

Blake Inspired Teachers Conference 25-29 Sept 2023

 Mrs Daniel and Ms Everitt were lucky enough to spend a week at the Blake Inspired Teachers Conference in Auckland during the holidays. Lots of inspired learning.

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.

'Newbees' Explore Sustainability at Waka

 Our 'Newbees' in Room Rima took their first steps on their 

sustainability journey at Waka today. 

We went on a tour of all our special sustainable places like the whare hei hei, mara kai, and bee hives.  We noticed lots of spring blossoms for our bees.

Please help us on our Zero Waste journey by packing litter free lunch.

Eco Warriors Compare and Contrast at Sunnyhills School

 On Monday our Waka Eco Warriors spent an afternoon at Sunnyhills School looking at how things are different with their sustainability journey.

Our Highlights were: Sunnyhills bike track, fluffy green classroom mat, Edible Gardens, 

and Hotcompost. Were took time to reflect on what actions 

we would like to embark on at our School.

Upon returning to school we were able to share our knowledge with our peers.

Powering towns sustainably

 Today Year 5 collaborated to solve the problem of how to power a hypothetical town sustainably. We had to research how other actual towns did this and which way was best suited.

Storm Water Sleuthing - Data Collecting, Mapping & Extrapolation

 

Our citizen science stormwater project continued today with the Eco Warriors and Monique. We split into groups to map the outdoor drains and survey the litter in our drain trap. 

It took a long time to carefully sort and weigh the litter in the drain.

In May there were 30 pieces of litter in the drain. Today there were sadly still 34 pieces. The bits of Tiger Turf in the drain are also a problem, but we didn't count these.

 Straw wrappers, Tiger Turf, and food wrappers were the biggest problems. A reminder that we need more litter-free lunches, please.

Next, we extrapolated that if there are 27 drains and 64 pieces of litter in each drain there could be 1728 pieces of litter leaving Wakaaranga and going into the Wakaaranga Creek every few months.  Oh no! What could we do? Jiajia - reward litter-free lunches, Lily - pick up litter, Kelly - take your litter home.  

Do people know that outside drains go to the sea? Are they dropping the litter by accident? 

How can we draw attention to this problem? Samuel - give rewards for litter-free lunches. Esther - spread awareness by talking in an assembly. Jiajia - a class activity to acknowledge litter-free lunches.  Indi - litter-free lunches go to morning tea early. Charlotte - make posters.

Next time we are going on a field trip to the creek to see where our stormwater leads ...