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Happy new year everyone, welcome back.

There is lots to be excited about in the enviro programme for 2024.

We will continue to maintain, plant, cultivate and use the produce from our school/community garden.  The aim is to put surplus vegetables and herbs into our community pantry (pātaka) as well as supply our school kitchen with kai.

We have a strong connection with Friends of Totara Park and this will continue with regular trips to the park in order to plant seedlings and native trees, weed and maintain areas in the park, identify plants and conduct pest control.  We will work alongside park rangers from Auckland Council in regular sessions throughout the year.

TGS has been part of the Trees for Survival programme for a number of years now and we will continue being part of this wonderful project.  We have potted up a large number of native trees last year and they have done well over the summer here at school.  Later in July we will get on a bus and plant these trees on a farmer’s property.  A beautiful lunch will be provided after all 300 trees have been planted!

This year our school has entered a competition to collect as many moth plant pods as possible.  This is a New Zealand wide competition where schools and ECEs identify, collect, count and package all the moth pods they can in order to win a substantial amount of cash for their organisation.  The moth plant is one of our most damaging pests and the pods contain up to 700 seeds which, when split, can travel up to 30 kms away.  The vine strangles everyone in it’s path – including buildings!

Another project we will embark on is designing, building and planting a teepee with vegetables we will be able to use.

Enviro sessions will also be based around experiments, topic- based activities and hands – on learning from the excellent House of Science kits.

So, lots to look forward to in enviro this year – keep watching this space!