Year 6 Explore Te Ao Maori and the Estuary

 

Today Year 6 learnt about the importance of estuaries to Maori.  In the early days estuaries were used for catching eels, fishing, putting food in to keep cool, travelling, farming and harvesting.

We learnt about he concept of kaitiakitanga - protecting of nature and being a part of it rather than owning and using it up.

We read an article Kaitiaki of the Stream 

Sadly we found out our estuaries are now threatened by:

Vida "plastic"

Hunter "Fertiliser run off"

Vienna "Trees are cut down so there's no shade and the soil gets into the water"

Cody "Rainwater from the road that carries poison"

Next, played a Kahoot to learn key Te Reo Maori Kupu.

Afterwards we became kaitiaki for our Mara Kai.  After all the kumara were harvested the garden beds needed to be fed with nutrients.  We collected compost made from our lunch box scraps and last year's hangi scraps and put it on the gardens.

Olivia "I saw worms and showed them to my friends"

"We should use less plastic because it can't break down" Laela

"Pour the compost on the soil not on top of the plants" Manal

Evie "I saw a lot of centipedes and lots of worms"

Olivia M "Some food scraps hadn't been broken down and that's where the worms and insects like to be."

"I think worms are cool but creepy" Evie

Keshan "Compost is life"

Year Six Planting thanks to Tamaki Estuary Environmental Forum

 Today, Year Six started planting the native grasses that were donated to us from the Tamaki Estuary Environmental Forum.  You can check our their good mahi by the Fordyce Entrance.

Year Four Matariki Cabbage Harvest

Today it was Year Four's turn to harvest kai for our Matariki Hangi.  We dug about for the last of our kumara and harvested big round cabbages.  The worms in our worm farms will be very happy, because they got all the spare leaves and stems. They'll make lovely compost for growing more kai.

We also reviewed how Maori brought Kumara to Aotearoa. Then we learnt how Chinese immigrants, Mr & Mrs Gock helped the kumara by developing a disease resistant type by watching this mini doc.

What did you learn today?

Harvey "Black rot can rot the kumara when it's too wet"

Maymay "Whakaoterangi brought kumara"

"The leaves of the kumara are heart shaped" Ella

"Mr and Mrs Gock helped the kumara from black rot" Ciara

Ella "When the leaves are yellow it's time to dig up the kumara".

"Mr and Mrs Gock gave the new type of kumara for free to NZ farmers" Alice.

Year Six - What Makes SHS a GreenGold Enviroschool?

 

Year 6 - How are we a GreenGold Enviroschool?

Aiden - we turn food scraps into compost

Yumi - we plant trees

Olivia A - we grow vegetables 

Evie - we plant hundreds of trees every year

Alexandra - we have litterfree lunches

We took part in a scavenger hunt to remind us of all the places we have created around the school to help us be more sustainable.

Afterwards K1 helped compost the Mara Kai so we can plant onions and cabbages for the Matariki Hangi,  K3 created a digital map of our Enviroschool and K2 watered the Mara Kai with worm tea to help it grow.

We are empowered learners!  This year in our sustainability lessons we would like to:

- go outside more

-do more cooking of food

- plant more trees

- eat more kai

- learn about the ocean

- learn about plants around the world

- be an Eco Leader!

- make an Enviro song

- learn more about NZ sea animals

- learn more about native animals

- learn about carniverous plants

- try new veges and fruit

- more scavenger hunts

- grow more fruit trees

- pick up litter around the school

- help trees and birds

- walk to school

Year Three's Broadbean Harvest

 Today Year Three harvested broadbeans and made broadbean dip to eat on crackers.

BROADBEAN DIP

Ingredients - broadbeans and salt

Method:

1 Pod broadbeans

2 Microwave for 2min on until outer layer splits

3 Double pod broads

4 Whizz in a food processor with salt until smooth

5 Serve on crackers

6 Dispose of pods into the compost or wormfarm

7 Save some pods to dry out so we have broadbeans to plant next year.

Constance "Picking them was really fun."

Carrie "I liked eating it"

Tino "The broadbeans on the cracker smelt like popcorn"

Awa "It tasted like avocado"

Coby "It looked like guacamole"

Josh " I have to say it was amazing"

Where do veges in the supermarket come from? 

"All over the world" Eloise

"The shop owner grows it in their garden" 

"They come from the earth"

"They come from farmers that grow them then they come in trucks" Audrey

We learnt about how vegetables get from market gardens to the supermarkets by reading this article Kumara Behind the Scenes.  

Luca "From the market garden they put it in a truck to the packhouse and then into another truck to the distribution centre and then another truck to the supermarket"

There were alot more steps than straight from our Mara Kai! Also growing our own kai with our own compost with seeds we saved from last year is very cheap. And there are no trucks.  Are there is no plastic packaging.

We wanted to make our broadbeans look fun and healthy to eat, so we came up with our own broadbean mascots.

Bok Choy Banquet with Year Three

 Today, Year 3 harvested the bountiful bok choy from our Mara Kai. We talked about how it had grown from last year's plants with the help of our school bees. Mrs Daniel had left two plants to go to flower and now there's lots of plants that have grown from the scattered seeds.

Ciara "It tasted sweet and a little bit bitter".

Coby "I had a stomach ache and it cured it".

Tino "The bok choy was juicy and nice".

Afterwards we typed recounts in a Google Doc:

Bok choy noodle Soup

Today Room 18 and Ms Daniel cooked up Bok choy noodle soup.We went to the kitchen and

chopped up the bok choy with a big knife.Next we added it to noodle and flavours and water.

Ms Daniel boiled it all for 3 minutes.We each got a cup.Ms Daniel said we could slurp it.  It tasted like normal noodle and vegetable.  I liked it.  Jin Room 18.

29.5.24

Enviro Bok Choy Noodle Soup

Today we went to Enviro. We went into the kitchen.

We played Sustainable Shaun.

Some people made the soup.

We ate some. It was delicious.

Then we cleaned the cups&forks.

We left and that's how I came to write this story 

The end. Matty

Room 8 and Ms Daniel had bokchoy soup and it smelt  and tasted sooooo good. The noodles  were the best part for me. I didn't ’t like the bokchoy that much. Madison