Thursday, December 12, 2013

York Stream

Ngā Mana Kākano o te Wairepo have been learning about our awa, York Stream. We have been busy creating an interactive display in the Nelson public library, and making a presentation at the Nelson City Council meeting. Here's what we said to the councillors and the mayor:

Presentation to Nelson City Council Thursday 12 December 2013
Ngā Mana Kākano o te Wairepo

Karakia, mihimihi (Ariana)
Waiata – Te Tai Aroha (Freedom)

Presentation (Eita, Tessa, Kalley-Bo, Reann, Kenneth, Renata)
Kia ora, we represent Ngā Mana Kākano o te Wairepo, the whānau classes at Victory Primary School. York Stream is the awa that runs through our school. This term we have been learning about stream care and how to care for our awa. We have been learning about what a stream needs to be healthy and what makes a stream unhealthy. Our awa, York Stream is unhealthy. Our awa is polluted, with no life force and there are none of the signs of a healthy river. People keep throwing rubbish into it. Parts of it are dangerous for baby animals such as ducklings because they get stuck. Our stream is unsafe, we can’t even go down to the water because it is so polluted. We want our awa to be clean because for so long it’s been dirty, with no little creatures living in it. We would like it to be flowing water, filled with living creatures with trees and birds on its banks. We are presenting you with this petition, it has been signed by all of the tamariki in Ngā Mana Kākano o te Wairepo.

Dear Nelson City Council,
We want you to clean all of the rubbish out of our awa. We want the pollution to be fixed so that ika, tuna and koura can live in the water. We want more native trees planted along our awa to help keep it cool and clean. We want fish ladders installed to help native fish migrate upstream. We want a new fence built where York Stream runs through our school. We want the area just before our awa goes underground to be enhanced and improved.
Ngā Mana Kākano o te Wairepo
Victory Primary School

Mihi whakamutunga (Latavia)

Waiata – Ko te Waipounamu (Freedom)




Friday, November 15, 2013

Envirogroup Bronze Reflection


On  Friday 8 of  November Victory Envirogroup did a Bronze Reflection. This is the Bronze Reflection paragraph.

Bronze Relection Paragraph
We have started work on getting to know our environment better and creating a Whole School Vision. All the Guiding Principles are becoming part of our planning and action, and we can see how they would look across the four Key Areas of school life. We are exploring options and finding some ways to take action for a sustainable future. Some changes can already be seen from what we have done. There are some students and staff actively involved, and we’ve taken steps to let everyone else in the school know about what is going on. The people in our school and community know that we are an enviroschool.

We agreed that we have achieved the bronze level for enviroschools.

Below are the Guiding Principles. We collected all the evidence around our school under these headings. Then we decided on our next steps.

Guiding Principles
Empowered Students
At Victory students are doing things to help improve our school.
Learning for Sustainability
At Victory this looks like re-using, recycling, being able to replace what we use, living smarter and keeping things.
Sustainable Communities
At Victory we are connected to our community.
Māori Perspectives
At Victory we respect, learn about and celebrate a Māori point of view.
Respect for the Diversity of People and Cultures
At Victory we respect and celebrate everyone’s different cultures and beliefs.







Our next steps are:

Empowered Students
  • Students run blog 
  • Presentations at school assembly
  • More rubbish sorting
  • Tiaki Taiao blog on display in library
  • Inform new entrants - enrolment pack?
  • Reps from each class in envirogroup

Learning for Sustainability
  • Classes plant and care for fruit trees
  • Use guiding principles when planning
  • Incorporate into classroom learning
  • Classes/ syndicates take responsibility for different things

Sustainable Communities
  • A better understanding of our community environment
  • Write in community newsletter, Ecobuzz and school newsletter
  • Spread word to our community

Māori Perspectives
  • Learn more the reo and waiata in class
  • Karakia and waiata in assembly
  • Invite people to perform/share in assembly

Respect for the Diversity of People and Cultures
  • We need to do a lot more work in this area
  • Learn about the different cultures in our school
  • Diversity garden
  • Food festival (zero waste)
  • Whole school shared lunch
  • More murals - diversity wall
  • Invite people to perform/share at assembly

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Zero Waste Lunchboxes

The Envirogroup are designing and making lunchboxes from used ice cream containers. Today we started painting our lids.




Monday, July 1, 2013

Planting Fig Trees with Whaea Aimee








Envirogroup

The envirogroup has been discussing the problems we have regarding rubbish, and what we want to do about it. We started designing posters encouraging people to put their rubbish in the right bin.



More Tree Planting for Matariki on the Railway Reserve





Friday, May 24, 2013

Tiaki Taiao @ Victory this week...

The Envirogroup compared lunches.
Can you spot the zero waste lunchboxes?







 The Envirogroup - Creating signs for our recycling buckets.

 Rōpū Pūkenga - Making signs for our Toenga Kai buckets.
 Gardening Club - Making watering cans out of milk bottles.
 Making signs for the garden.
 Watering the garden.
 Whānau Kiekie and Whānau Koromiko - adding soil to the garden.