News from the Environment Council 

The Environment Council is new this year! We have a large group of keen students led by Lucy Dobbs and Ella Yeoman hoping to make a positive environmental impact. Ideas that are being worked on so far are getting some worm farms up and running and getting green bins for food waste to stop it going into the red bins. 

Our first event was a beach clean up. We joined Sustainable Coastlines on a Saturday afternoon for a few hours. Over a number of locations 257 volunteers removed 4,450 litres of waste from the coastline! 

Our next big event is a clothes swap to be held in the last week of term. Constantly buying new clothes is a strain on environmental resources. Why not recycle instead! Students should bring their unwanted clothes (washed and in good condition) to the Science area every Wednesday lunchtime. They will then be able to come and pick up some ‘new to you’ clothing for a gold coin donation on Wednesday 8th April. Look out for the posters for further details. 

Environment Council ‘s beach clean-up

The environment council members did some awesome work on the 29 February at a beach clean up. Working off Tidal View, which is the top end of the estuary and under the Ferrymead bridge, they found lots of plastic, an advertising banner, cutlery, bottles, a gas bottle, tyres, plastic, plastic and more plastic! 

The girls did a fantastic job and even made it into The Press newspaper. 

Level 3 Biology Trip to Orana Park 

Biology students visited Orana Park on March 19th to study at the Zoo School. It was a beautiful sunny day, although the gorillas proved to be somewhat of a distraction from the tasks to be done! Primates were studied both in the flesh and also by analysing the primate skull collection at the school. This then led on to looking at the early hominin skulls to understand the patterns of human evolution. 

The students had a fascinating day, feeling that the time spent there really helped to solidify learning that had been done in class prior to the trip. Watching the gorillas was a bonus! 

Evolocity

Evolocity is well underway, we have two teams, a junior team re-building an electric cart from past years and a senior team starting from scratch using new materials. Both teams working really hard coming into the hard materials space each lunchtime, planning, discussing, measuring, cutting, drilling and joining materials. 

The Senior team consists of Ash Fleming, Jessica Jopson and Felicity Snowdon with Mollie O’Brian as support crew/driver, while the Junior team consists of Jessie Elcock and Emma Dufty.

Lunchtime Carving Wananga

Oamaru stone carving has also been happening during some lunchtimes. If you would like to have a go and join in please see Mr Smitheram or Mrs Peseta. Everyone is welcome to pop in and have a go. Materials and tools provided.