Sharing & Collaborating Beyond GreenGold

It's been another exciting week in The Green Room. On Wednesday morning,our visiting teachers from Singapore watched Room 10 in action, learning about growing food with Mrs Daniel in The Green Room and Edible Gardens.  I think they liked the strawberry picking and eating best.

Later that day two teachers from Papatoetoe East Primary were shown around by Doreen, Holly, Joseph and Danya.  Later they met with Mrs Daniel to discuss implementing their own Enviro CRT programme.  We decided to keep in touch and perhaps organise trips to each other's schools next year.  We'll share more ideas in the months to come.  It'd be great to have another collaborator on our journey towards sustainability!

Lastly two teachers from Maungawhau Primary visited today to investigate ways in which our whole school use Education for Sustainability and the Enviroschools programme across the curriculum.  They met with Mrs Venville and Mrs Daniel, before Danya and Amy did an amazing job of showing them around too. 

We love sharing our ideas and building relationships with other enviro communities!

Marine Metre Squared - Citizen Science

On Thursday, 28 learners and seven parent volunteers joined Mrs Daniel, Mrs Venville, environmentalist Mels Barton & marine biologist Emma on a beach trip with a difference.

We braved the thick mud of the Tamaki Estuary to collect data on the sea life. Our parent volunteers went above and beyond assisting with carefully recording data and retrieving children stuck in the mud. Thank you! Only one gumboot was lost completely.

Despite looks there's lots living down at the Rotary Walkway at low tide; shrimps, fish, crabs, sea worms, snails and lots of cockles. Ryan found an as yet unidentified bright green aquatic worm and Billy found an albino mud crab.  We'll upload our findings for scientists at Otago University to track trends in our marine health.

How cool is it to be hanging out with real scientists in the field and helping collect data for a nationwide study.

We're looking forward to when Mels Barton returns to Sunnyhills so we can compare our data with our last trip.

Scoot to School Day

Lots of fun scooting at lunchtime today.  Andy from Auckland Transport was there to check on scooting skills and help out with tips.

Giant Walk Monday 19th Novenber

Supporting Squawk Squad - We've trapped 20 pests!

The Senior kids at Sunnyhills were set the challenge to use what they've learnt in their enviro lessons this year to create a project that helps nature.

One group planned and ran their own food stalls over two days to raise money for The Squawk Squad. They raised $164.70, that we'll use to fund a trap to help save our native birds. 

Sunnyhills School already has one trap we raised money for last year, and the kids love watching the tally displayed in the hall going up. 

Our trap has caught 20 invasive pests! That's a lot of kiwi chicks being made safer in their natural hime.

Room Tekau Eat Strawberries

Our new bird netting is working a treat; everyone in Room 10 each got a ripe red strawberry today.

We're using the 5+ADay Resource to learn about growing food and healthy eating.

Enviroschools Celebration 2018

The Enviroschools Celebration closed out an amazing year for Education For Sustainability at Sunnyhills. The learners who represented our school did an amazing job of sharing our action learning with the other schools, councillors, facilitators and local board members. We loved seeing what other schools and ECE's have been up to as well.

In addition, the celebration was a wonderful opportunity for Mrs Daniel, Mrs Venville and Mrs Driver to network and reflect with fellow educators and community contacts.

It was a really proud moment officially receiving our GreenGold Enviroschools Certificate.

Check out all the photos by following this link: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AgJZrEIOptcdvz6dpjzgDvOJ9tTP

Superhero walking to School week 2

Superhero walking to school week slide show 1

Wonderful wetas

Room 12 have been looking at the little animals that live in our backyard 🐝🐞🦗🕸🐜🦋

Today we went on a weta hunt.

We found one baby boy in the Kea weta hotel and one grown up female in the cabbage trees. Do you know the difference between the boys and girls? Ask a Room 12 learner to tell you 🙂

Our weta are special. We look after them.

Twins and Triplets Day for Walking To School Week

Funky Hair Day - walking To School Week

Get Hooked on Nature - Our Design Technology Project

Ben Klasky's TED talk inspired our Year 5 & 6's to come up with a solution to the question "How might we encourage kids to get hooked on nature"

The results have been awesome! Our Year 5 & 6's problem solved in teams and incorporated lots of technology in their solutions. Projects included card games, scavenger hunts, videos, food stalls, eco classroom designs, raps and web sites.

Below is a video about Auralie & Holly's Bugstagram website:

Find more examples of our projects by searching for "Get Hooked on Nature" on Youtube

Dissecting Kutai

Today Going Gold dissected kutai (greenlipped mussels), as part of our prep for the Marine Metre Square Project.

Did you know the Hauraki Gulf used to be completely covered with mussels that filtered the water clear? Unfortunately humans stripped all the mussel beds destroying ecosystems and leaving the water murky. We wondered what could be done to fix this.

It was so fun to dissect the kutai and identitfy the parts. A mussel dinner will never be the same again! Did you know they have a foot? And the beardy bits are actually called byssal threads? They're the part that attaches the mussel to the rocks.

We found some surprise crabs in our mussels and did further research about them. They're called pea crabs. They use that mussel as a place to live and eat its food. Some of the crabs had eggs.

Valentina said its the most fun thing she's done in Enviro so far.

We wonder if we'll find mussels on our MM2 field trip ...

Room 19 & 18 Eat a Rainbow

Today we foraged in our edible gardens to create delicious salads. Look how colourful they are!

Eating a rainbow of fruit and veges everyday is an easy way to get a variety of vitamins and minerals our bodies need to learn and grow. And they taste great too!

Can you identify some of our salad ingredients? Comment below!

Room Tekau Ma Tahi Create Weta Wonderlands

Room 11 have been researching wetas. They have created hotels for them with the materials left by one of our knowledgeable Greengold Reflection guests. Let's hope they protect our tree weta buddies!

Stay tuned to see if we get any guests.