...we went to school and we got in the car. After 20 minutes, the car arrived at the Climate Action Campus. It was a place where many plants were planted. Then, we gathered in a room and talked. After that, we were starting to paint rocks white. The rocks would become labels for our plants back at school. I think everyone enjoyed that time.

After we finished painting rocks, we walked over to find some chickens. It was a really hot day, I was exhausted. It felt like I spent the whole day walking. Anyway, we arrived. I could see many cute chickens. They were so fluffy. I fed them some spinach and tried to hug them. But it was a bit scary to grab them.

After feeding the chickens we went for a walk around the campus. We looked at many pictures and murals on the walls of buildings. They were painted by lots of different artists including someone from Japan and someone from China. The Chinese artist was 82 years old!

Next, we learned about making compost. Rachel taught us that we needed to make layers. So, we gathered leaves, coffee, some wood pieces. We worked as a team to gather all the things we needed. We put them in a trolley and in bags and walked them over to the compost heap.

After gathering the ingredients, we stacked them one by one, making layers. We ripped up some cardboard and put it down on the wooden box to make the first layer. Then we put some dried leaves as a second layer. For the third layer we sprinkled some coffee grinds. Some of the coffee grinds were chunked up together so we had to smash them into powder again. Then we added the leaves, and then some straw.

Then we had morning tea.

After morning tea Sandy taught us how to plan our garden at school. Together we drew a map of the school and planned where we would plant our plants.

When we finished the garden planning, we had our lunch. There were many kinds of food and they were all delicious. After lunch Rachel made us hot chocolate. It was sweet and hot and creamy and it had marshmallows.

After we made compost and ate lunch, we explored a lot of things. First, we saw the big tree. The tyres were hanging from the trees, so we had a good time playing on swings and climbing trees. Afterward, we saw the bee house. In there, we saw the fantail (the bird’s Maori name is “Piwakawaka”.) We also saw the bird’s food which was an orange, hanging in a tree with seeds. Then we saw the insect hotel, and even a worm farm. Yulia and Dayoon even touched a worm!

Then we went into a classroom and Sandy taught us about planting seeds. We choose our favourite seed first. Then the container was filled with soil and we buried the seeds in the soil. We planted broccoli, flowers, lettuce, spring onion, garlic, and spinach. We were allowed to take the seeds back to school to grown in our new garden.

At the Climate Action Campus we had a great time. We learned lots of new skills that we will be able to use when we plan and make our garden back at school!

In this issue

Japanese Workshop at UC