Taking Action

He kai kei aku ringa!

There is food at the end of my hands.

To us, this whakatauki means that we have the capability to make decisions, the grit to carry out our plans and the power to make change.

Akonga at Birchwood School are empowered to investigate, explore ideas, make decisions, take action and reflect on the changes they initiated.

Across School Action

As our Enviroschools work expanded across the kura, we noticed themes developing around our actions. We decided to actively plan around these natural interests to create a focus area for each age group which links with our school values as well as the enviroschools guiding principles.

SEAVIEW HUB

Hā = Air

Pollinator Pathway

SONGER HUB

Tangata = People

Good Sorts Project

DURHAM HUB

Whenua = Earth

Garden to Table

MANUKAU HUB

Wai = Water

ManaMoana

Learning in Action

Science, weather and climate

Our school wide inquiry for the second half of 2024 involved learning about the weather and the impact of human activity on the climate.

Science

Cawthron: Birchwood School ākonga had the chance to monitor the heartbeats of pāua, search for different species that live in seagrass meadows and try their hand at paper chromatography during the Cawthron Climate Change Solutions from the Sea education workshop in term 4 of 2024. Developed by Cawthron scientist Dr Jonathan Puddick (JP), the workshop has run at several local schools this year thanks to the support of the Cawthron Institute Trust Board, and assistance from Educator Glenis Paul who works for Marine Science Otago at University of Otago. We appreciate Cawthron sharing their mahi to inspire us - the future generations of scientists!

We often consolidate our science learning by creating art. This is an interpretation of a weather map using the Beaufort Wind Scale.

Climate learning in the classroom included hands on experiments like this one about cloud formation.

Cawthron Ocean Outreach was an incredible learning experience.

Tamariki in Tawa (R12) were excited to choose there own ways to demonstrate their learning around the water cycle.

Education outside the classroom

Our Enviro Manukura and a team of students visited the Materials Recovery Facility in Richmond in 2023 and again in 2024.

We discovered a lot of good recycling going on - aluminium, tin cans, cardboard and plastic were all being sold for re-purposing.

The York Valley landfill site was a real eye-opener! So much rubbish and nowhere for it all to go - and the stink! We were shocked.

We reflected on how each of us can take individual action & influence others which adds up to big positive changes. Watch our movie on the videos page.

Student Action

Pen Recycling

Kaiako Eleanor coordinates tamariki in Tawa (R12) to collect all the non working pens, markers and pencils from around the school each week.

Milk Cartons

Kaiako Susan trains our enviro manukura (leaders) how to open, clean and stack the milk cartons from breakfast club so they can be recycled.

Waste Free Wednesdays

Our Manukura o te Taiao (enviro leaders) Hailey and Isla came up with the idea to encourage other tamariki to bring 'nude food' in their lunches. Kaitiaki Karen helped them run a special assembly linking waste reduction to our school GROW values. They collected data each week and worked with Camilla to make a graph of our progress across term 4 as more and more whānau gave wrapper free lunches a go.

Paper recycling

Each week the classroom monitors go through the class paper bins to ensure the contents meet Kaitkaiki Karens rules - paper only, nothing smaller than an envelope.

Kaitiaki Karen checks the bin carefully before she puts it out on the road ... BUT.. some people in the neighbourhood throw their household rubbish in this special paper bin overnight! Then it cannot be recycled and the whole bin gets rejected!!

We decided to take action to fix this. Summer and Isla made posters for the bin, created flyers to help our neighbours do the right thing and wrote an article for the school newsletter.

Other recycling

In addition to things we collect for standard council recycling (paper, cardboard plastic #1, #2 & #5, tins, glass), we started collecting a range of different items that whānau cannot easily recycle themselves.

Soft plastics: Collected in classrooms and in the hall to go via the council to Future Post in Blenheim.

Plastic Lids: Collected in the hall, sorted by Rāta and dropped off to Grassroots Recycling.

Metal Lids: Collected in the hall, cleaned and sorted by Kōwhai and dropped off to Natureland by Susan (kaiako in Rāta).

Milk Cartons: Collected and cleaned at Breakfast Club and from the staffroom. Checked by the Manukura (student leaders) and taken by SusanR to Grassroots Recycling to be made into building products (Saveboard).

Chip Packets: Collected in the staff room and in Harakeke (R8. Cleaned and ironed by Enviro Fri-Yay group to by used as thermal blankets by The Chip Packet Project.

Medication blister packs. Collected in the hall. Monitored and sorted by Tawa (R12) and sent to Terracycle via Eleanor.

Clothing swap

In 2023, four students from Nīkau felt concerned about the large amount of clothing going into landfill. They collected clothing from whānau over a month, sorted it and gave it away at our inaugural clothing swap. Students who donated clothing got early VIP access to the event. Then students and their whānau (who were at school for our Matariki engagement day) were able to come through and choose. In 2024 we added a clothes swap area to our weekly Crop Swap table which is outside the hall on Fridays. Whānau can swap clean, quality clothes for some of our donated items or simply take what they need.

Crop Swap & Koha Table

"Every Friday we run a crop swap outside the hall. Whānau coming in for assembly can give, take or swap with the option of making a small donation to our Garden to Table programme. This has become so popular that it now includes a Koha table with whānau bringing in books, canned food and toys to be given away." Ariana and Farrah.

Food Diversion

"The Crop Swap Table is so popular, I love being part of it. We were wondering how we could make it even better. Lou from the Birchwood School Parents' Group connected with Countdown in Stoke. She discovered we could be part of the Food Diversion Programme. Every Friday we go and collect kai that would otherwise be wasted. We use it for Garden to Table, give it away to whānau and freeze some. Next year we are going to learn how to preserve some." Taylor.

Worm Farms

Along with our school pamu noke, one of our classrooms, Tī Kōuka, created their own worm farm. Mila and Raeghan are now worm experts!

"The types of worms that are in the worm farm are called tiger worms. People ask why do you have worm farms? The first reason is that the worms will eat the waste. The second reason is that the poo is called casts and casts is really good to use for your dirt. If you mix it with water it can be used to nourish fruit trees and vegetable plants." Mila & Raeghan.

Near the end of term 4 Mila and Zoe discovered an avocado seed which had sprouted inside the worm farm - now they are trying to raise it to a tree.

Shredded Paper

Making use of the office shredding, Harakeke learned how to make 'fire bricks' with Kaitiaki Karen. These were given away to whanau for their winter fires. We are now carefully collecting all the shredding so this can be an ongoing project.

Another popular project was making garden ornaments and planter pots from the shredded paper. We mixed the paper with...

Compost

We are now in our third year of nurtiring our compost as a living resource for the school.

We built a larger compost bin in 2023. All the scraps from Garden to Table go in here! In 2024 kaiako and other staff members were given small buckets and they began to bring their own kai scraps from home. The food scraps from Garden to Table go here and each term we have a composting week to promote composting and learn about the composting cycle. Our goal is to get whānau and community members to contribute their food scraps too. We even made our own mini compost bins in glass jars so we could observe the decomposition in action.

Waste reduction

Students from our Manukura o te Taiao conducted a waste audit with Rick from Enviroschools. They are creating videos to demonstrate correct rubbish and recycling procedures at school.

Ngaio collected litter from our school and laid it out to discuss where all this rubbish had come from and where it would go if we didn't pick it up.

Kaiako endeavour to use digital technology to reduce printing paper such as having questions on the TV or sharing slides instead of a worksheet.

Kaiako Action

Our Kaiako have also been making active decisions to lead by example in respecting the whenua and the environment.

Iwi Connection

During our Staff Only Day in February 2023, we were fortunate to hoe the Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō waka 'Haeata' at Lake Rotoiti. The journey of people in a waka is often an analogy for working together and supporting others. This hands on experience helped us teach the navigation and migration stories to our ākonga with a personal connection to waka.

Tuna

Fishing for tuna (eel) is an incredibly significant part of the Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō cultural identity and, as mana whenua at Birchwood School, they allowed us to engage in their close relationship with both the tuna and the Nelson Lakes. Our PD at Lake Rotoiti gave us insight into the transfer of intergenerational cultural knowledge, as well as combining mātauranga Māori with western science in collaboration with DOC.

Pūrākau

Almost every kaiako at Birchwood School is directly engaged with Te Ahu o te Reo Māori - an initiative aimed at empowering educators with matauranga and pūrākau from our 8 local iwi.

We learn and teach through these stories and enjoy connecting the messages across the curriculum.

We currently have five teachers enrolled in the last wave of this kaupapa who on-teach what they learn to the rest of our staff and tamariki.

Consumables

Where does Birchwood source its consumables like paper? Do we pressure our suppliers to be kinder to the environment? What do we do to recycle at school? Do Kaiako model sustainable practices? Inspired by the students' questions, and led by Jan, Wendy & Susan, our staff have been making changes in our habits and purchasing decisions. We have even banned glitter!

Jan collects polystyrene from our packaging and takes it to Mitre10 as well as collecting spent batteries which she drops off at the transfer station.

Titiro Whakamua - Looking Ahead

Pest Traps

Our new compost attracted some unwanted visitors to our kura. At Brook Sanctuary we learned about traps and tunnels. We would really like to set our own traps next year to keep our taonga plants and species safe.

Manukau Estuary

In 2025 we want to write letters to the Nelson City Council and ask them to change the name of the estuary back to Manukau which means wading birds.

Monaco doesn't mean anything, it's somewhere far away and we don't lnow how it got changed. We changed the name of our hub in 2018 to the right one because we think it is important.

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