Seek The Truth
Posts tagged environment
Room 13 Rubbish Patrol
Room 13 had a big tidy up of the school grounds and fence line, collecting 9 bags of rubbish. The most common rubbish was chip packets.
Trees for Survival 2011
Room 11 is responsible for the Trees for Survival (TFS) this year. However the Year sixs went to an Intermediate open day and the Year 5’s from Room 14 joined the Room 11 Year 5’s for a days planting at Waitoki.
The reason we plant trees is to stop erosion, increase the native bush area and help keep our waterways clean. The plants come to us as seedlings that we grow to plants about 30-40 cms tall. We then plant them on farm land. We have been going to Waitoki for about 6 years.
We first have a bus trip of about 45 minutes, the last part is quite windy, but we get welcomed by Phil and enjoy a nice morning tea, then it is down to business.
We get shown what is to be our toilet first, a chemical sit down in a small hunt about 1M x 1M. You pump water in then open a trap door to get rid of the deposits.
We are shown how to plant the trees and make them firm so the pukekos can’t pull them out. The plants were spaced out ready. We set to work. For the next 2 hours it was heads down and bottoms up. It was hard, tiring work but it was worth it. Most people planted about 40 trees. At one stage we were told we were the hardest working group that had ever been there. Less people planted more tress in a shorter time that even last year.
We felt good, impressed, satisfied, but weary. All of a sudden we had finished planting. We got told there was no pizzas this year. When we got washed we found out it was yummy sausages instead. A cheer went up. We zoomed into line quickly when we were told they were ready.
After lunch we were told again that we were the best group ever.
On the bus trip back most of the kids dropped off to sleep, at least 2 fell off the seat. It was a very exciting trip. The Year 5’s get to do it again next year.
Room 10 Planting Day
On Wednesday 17 June Room 10 went to Waitoki for a planting day. We probably got there at 10 past 10. We were to plant up to 300 plants we had grown from seedlings and were now up to 30 cm high. There were 200 more plants there in addition to ours so we had a huge task ahead of us. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. When we got on the bus the weather was terribly cold but when we got there it was so hot nearly everyone had to take off their jacket, my it was hot!
When we first arrived we all were excited about the planting so the first thing we did was get some morning tea, have a tour of the house, get told how to dig, how to hold the spade and how to plant the plants.
After everyone got a spade we all started to plant. It was a long time before we got half way down the hill but it was fun because we got to play with the dogs, get a few photos taken, slipping in the mud and nearly every girl screamed because of a worm, that was hilarious I’m still laughing about it. We worked in ever changing groups, soon we were struggling to find a plant to plant or a space to plant it in.
By now we were hungry, we cleaned up and then got told we were going up to the big barn for lunch but we were to go in the back of a horse float. It was fairly dark, we couldn’t see where we were going, the road was bumpy and we had to sit on the floor. Oh no, have the horses done stuff on this floor? The ride was a bit like being on a bucking bronco, well not quite. It was only about a 3 or 5 minute ride and was very fun.
For lunch we had pizza, brownies, juice and some hot milo, mmmm! can still taste those yummy pizzas. They made the bases for Hell’s Piza but this was heavenly, yum. Everyone got to have 3rds!
The place where we had lunch was a huge garage that was 2 or 3 times bigger than room 10. In the garage there was a race car, tractor, an old car and heaps more. After lunch we had to sit on the steps a have a little assemble about saying thank you for giving us lunch and they thanked us for our planting efforts. It was then we were told we had planted over 500 plants.
When we got on the bus it was not that noisy for some reason. After a while 5 people fell asleep one started to snore ha-ha. When we got back to school it was nearly three o’clock so we all went home slept like a log because of the long day.
