Tōtara Park & Botanical Gardens

On Tuesday in week two we went to Tōtara park, and in week three we went to Botanical Gardens. We went to tōtara park and botanical gardens so we could see what a healthy environment looks like. Our LAUNCH theme this term is Kaitiakitanga meaning guardians of our environment.

Tōtara park

We started our kaitiakitanga journey at tōtara park. We used the seek app to discover different plant species and to look at all the vegetation. When we went to tōtara park I noticed that it was very muddy and there were not a lot of plants, but there were quite a lot of tōtara trees. In tōtara park I tried to identify many plant species, but there wasn’t a lot that I could find.

Overall, I enjoyed tōtara park. I found it fun and interesting to look at all the different types of plant species and looking at all the tōtara trees. 

Botanical gardens

I enjoyed botanical gardens. What I noticed at botanical gardens was that there was more vegetation and plants than tōtara park. At botanical gardens we did fun activities. The storm water work, and the scavenger hunt. First we got split into groups. My group started with the scavenger hunt. For the scavenger hunt we used the seek app and we had to find a plant species for every letter of the alphabet. We walked around the rose garden, and we walked around the pond. We found quite a few species of plants for each letter. We found a lot of plants for each letter but we were missing I, X, Y, Z. 

After the scavenger hunt, we did the storm water walk. We looked at fresh flowing water, and we read all the signs that informed us about the storm water that had been collected. Overall, we had a great experience at botanical gardens. My favourite part was the scavenger hunt.

What was different about botanical gardens and tōtara park was that at botanical gardens there was way more vegetation and plant species then there were at tōtara park. In tōtara park there were mainly trees and muddy trails, barely any vegetation. At botanical gardens it was the exact opposite. 

In conclusion, we had a great time at both botanical gardens, and tōtara park. My favourite was definitely botanical gardens as there were many plants to look at, I especially enjoyed looking at the ducks and eels in the pond.