Working alongside the Glenham school students at Glenelgin we did some maintenace weed clearing from around their native plantings. Using their investigative minds and clues shown a bird was identified and then the main attraction of the day was learning all about how we find out what pests might be around. Tracks and how these help us protect an area of native planting and all the creatures we want to attract to these areas were explored. An awesome day out in nature learning!
Bronwyn and Mark
Posted: 5 November 2021
The Southland Community Nursery was the venue for the final Enviroschools teacher workshop of 2021. Perfect weather (making operating outside under covid restrictions ideal), a great turnout and plenty of discussions around sustainable communities through Kai. Always great to work with Environment Southland and their Enviroschools mahi. The teachers present were inspired by the various habitats where edibles grow (the orchard, berry houses and vege gardens), we discovered all kinds of edibles including weeds and native plants, and explored planting and care.
Bronwyn
Posted: 5 November 2021
A broad overview of Otatara history was given to the Mānuka class over 2 sessions (26 Oct and 2 Nov). Without the use of the floor map that we have in the education centre the students created their own map in the classroom. As the stories of the Otatara place were told and discussed we stopped to add features to our map. First the Oreti River and the New River Estuary (which were also the early transport routes), the bush extent of 1865 and flaxmill sites, learning how Otatara Bush (as it was named) was a bush community and early sawmilling and flax milling operated. The changing location of Otatara School, the creation of tramline access from Invercargill, the reclamation of the estuary, and the development of the airport and the roading network all contributed to showing the changes that have occurred since people arrived in this area and how they have used the natural resources offered. One change discussed was how we now place different values on the bush and estuary habitats and how differently we manage the environment today. Looking at the treasures that Otatara has now - our bush remnants, how these are managed, the reasons why we value forest habitats, and the importance of planting were highlighted. It will be interesting to see what aspect of Otatara history that this class investigates further as there were amazing questions asked.
Bronwyn
Posted: 2 November 2021
After a previous visit in July where this group sheltered under trees and dodged hail, today the sun shone bright and warm. Todays bug search unearthed spiders, weta, slaters, hoppers, centipede, moths, casemoth cases, notches in flax, flat worms, spider webs and black beetles. The weta sure did jump high! We had to think about where we would find bugs and the places that these creatures live in. We counted how many legs we have compared to the different number of legs that different bugs have! We checked out the worm farm noticing all the baby worms, and checked out the hedgehogs in the traps! A picnic in the orchard completed a wonderful visit.
Bronwyn
Posted: 21 October 2021
Early in term 3 (4 August) I joined the Kōwhai (new entrant) and Tōtara classes of Otatara School to go and visit where the tōtara tree had been lifted from the neighbouring reserve (by helicopter the previous week). The students became investigators noticing interesting things along the way, and looking at the uplift site and what had changed since their last visit. It is great to explore alongside students who are noticing the most amazing things.
Last week of term (29 September) I visited the Kōwhai class and again the observation skills of the students were evident. These quick learners already knew about the flowers and leaves as identifiers of the kōwhai tree. Today we looked even closer at what happens to the flowers as they change into bumpy seed pods. Breaking the seeds out of the pods we noticed they were yellow! We then planted some pre-soaked kōwhai seeds (replicating nature as we think this helps them germinate).
This is what we did:
- We used potting containers which have holes in the bottom for drainage
- We filled the container with soil and flattened the surface gently using a wooden block
- We sprinkled the seeds on the surface of the soil
- Covered the seeds with a layer a gravel
- Labelled our containers with name and date planted
- Learnt how to care for our seeds – keeping outside and wet (not waterlogged, but not allowing the soil to dry out)
We then ran to one of the kōwhai trees on the school site and we noticed all the flowers at different stages, the seed pods, and lots of seeds on the ground. What a find! Mrs Dolman was given seed packets of mixed native seeds (including kōwhai) to give her class to plant over the holidays.
Bronwyn
Posted: 30 September 2021
