Welcoming Weta with K1 & Manukau Beautification Trust

 Thanks to resources provided by Manukau Beautification Trust, today K1 went all out to learn about weta and take action to encourage them to live their best weta lives in our nature trail.

We read about these fascinating endemic invertebrates and drew them.  Then used bamboo and wire to create homes for them amoungst our native trees.  Our Korean visiting teachers even got a turn too. We're going to check back with torches in two weeks time to see if any weta have moved in. 

Does your garden have lots of native trees for our insect taonga?

Year Six Award Silver for Sustainability at Paris 2024

 Today Year Six analysed Paris 2024's claim to be the most sustainable olympics.  We worked in groups to define sustainability then researched the strategies that France is using to mitigate the environmental impact of the games. 

Max "Sustainability is looking after the environment for the people in the future and now".

Rory "We need to have a balance between social care and economic growth"

Sustainable Cardboard Beds

We don't have didn't think Paris had quite achieved gold medal, sustainability so we came up with our own suggestions for LA 2028...

Mila and Annabelle designed a multi level multi sport stadium.

Indi came up with a rubbish collector that converts waste into building materials.

Sophie designed a recycled and reuseable back pack

Year Four Celebrating Gold Medal Sustainability

 

Today Year Four celebrated the NZ Seven's Team winning a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.  We thought about how large sporting events might create environmental issues:

Fay "Building stadiumswill take up more space and they'll have to cut down more trees."

Mukundi "People that come to the Olympics are going to use soda cans and plastic wrappers that could go into the sea".

Touma "Too much litter"

Harry "Building is the worst because it costs a lot of money and they kill the trees"

Zara "I think plastic is the worst becasue it goes down drains and kills animals"

Brayden "Mining is bad because the top bit of the ground can break and the houses can breakdown"

Next we investigated how Paris 2024 has taken action to help solve some of these issues or even improve the environment:

Kayla "They have electric trains and buses"

Grace "They are making cardboard beds"

Emma "The chairs at one of the stadiums are made out of recycled plastic"

Ellie "They are cleaning up the River Seine"

Thinking Critically About "Green" Events - Paris 2024

 

Year Five thought critically today about how green the greenest Olympics can really be.  Firstly we worked in groups to unscramble a tricky definition of sustainability:

Sustainability is about

meeting the needs of

current generations without

compromising the needs of

future generations, while

ensuring a balance between

economic growth, environmental

care and social well-being.

In our groups we brainstormed the possible environmental impacts of the Olympics.  These included waste, transport emissions, food waste, space for new buildings, smoke from fireworks.

Gracie even thought of this: "Mining for gold, silver and bronze for the medals is bad for the environment".

We researched in groups how Paris 2024 is mitigating these impacts and recorded in our own words. It's great to hear the River Seine has been cleaned up so competitors can swim in it.

Lastly, we critically analysed the strategies and ranked them in order of effectiveness.

We can't wait to watch the Olympics!

Next time we'll be getting back to looking at how we can travel to and from school sustainably. 

Sustainability at Paris 2024 Olympics

 We are so excited about the Olympics in Paris 2024, but are they sustainable? We began by discussing what we already knew about the Olympics:

Aavin "The Olympics are happening in France".

Milana "The Olympics are all sorts of sports competitions."

We also recapped what sustainability means:

Alonso "Sutainability means good quality"

Karuna "Sustainability means resusing things and not just throwing them away".

Luke "Keeping the world clean and taking care of it"

Lakyn "Looking after the environment" 

We discovered all the ways the Paris Olympics has said they are being more sustainable like planting a forest in Africa, using plastic bottles to make seats and water cooling instead of air conditioning. 

Lastly, we thought about what we could invent to make the 2028 Olympics even more sutainable: Camelia created a carbon dioxide sucking machine.  Annabelle thought of a airplane made of plastic bottles that is wind powered.  Coby suggested more electric helicopers.

What are you looking forward to watching at the Olympics? 

Next time we'll start our new topic looking at native birds.

Our Annual Garden Bird Survey 2024

 Today Year Four conducted our annual garden bird survey.  We'll share the results with Landcare as part of their citiizen science project.  Did you know bird numbers are an indicator of the health of our environment?  Check out our comparitive results here

You can take part at home too:

The survey introduces the concept and practice of carrying out simple surveys, which are important for scientific inquiry and a basic tool of conservation (you can’t look after wildlife properly unless you know what’s there and how much of it there is)

We observed 15 different species of bird at Sunnyhills today and the numbers were steady compared to last year, which is great news. Our planting and pest trapping may be having a positive effect.

Our Year Three's are starting an inqiry into our native birds next term. We can use this data to help come up with some actions to encourage more manu at our kura.