Arapohue School's Kyeisha Livingstone (left) and Heidi Hart identify Kaihu River fish species at the Kaipara Enviroschools encounter event.
Photo / Northland Regional Council
Arapohue School's Kyeisha Livingstone (left) and Heidi Hart identify Kaihu River fish species at the Kaipara Enviroschools encounter event.
Photo / Northland Regional Council
Three hundred young Northlanders are attending annual Te Tai Tokerau Enviroschools encounter days across the region this spring, with Ngā Wai – freshwater – this year’s theme.
The students are attending three Enviroschools days across Kaipara, Whangārei and the Far North during September and October.
Young people from 17 schools and 13 early childhood education centres across the region are taking part – from Waiharara in the north to Ruawai in the south.
This year’s annual events kicked off in Kaipara with 60 year four to eight students from six schools gathering at Kaihu north of Dargaville at the Kauri Coast Top10 Holiday Park on September 26.
There will be 170 students at the Whangārei event in the city’s Cafler Park and surrounds next week – 90 from seven schools and 80 from nine early childhood education centres.
About 80 young Northlanders are to date expected to turn out to a Far North event at Lonsdale Park near Kāeo on October 24 – with so far 39 students from four schools and 35 from students from four early childhood centres taking part.
Ruawai College students with the aquatic bug bags they made at the recent Kaipara Enviroschools encounter event. Photo / NRC
The Whangārei and Far North days have concurrent threads – outdoors for school students and indoors for the younger children. The Kaipara event was for school students only.
Students will spend the day exploring waterways including making “bug bags” to help identify water bugs and learn skills to check out how healthy a waterway is back in their home communities. These bags are put into waterways for about three weeks then retrieved, their newly in-residence water bugs analysed to get a picture of waterway health.
School students will also watch an electric fisher in action, use scientific equipment to take water measurements, and learn a water-related waiata to share with their school community.
Cafler Park’s Waiarohia Stream will be the focus of Whangārei school students’ freshwater explorations, while younger children will take part at the adjacent Whangārei Bowling Club. In the Far North, both options will happen at Lonsdale Park.
The indoor early childhood events will include identifying freshwater species, crawling through a pretend stormwater drain, playing awa bingo and using grabbers to sort debris from a make-believe stream. Face-painting, dress-ups and story time will complete the water-related activities on offer.
Northland Regional Council chairman Geoff Crawford said the council was proud to be hosting creative and innovative freshwater events that help children and their teachers with environmental learning and action.
The council introduced the national Enviroschools programme to Northland in 2004.
There are now 112 schools and 42 early childhood education centres in the Northland programme – provided in the region by the council in conjunction with two regional partners and 19 collaborators. The programme is in 33% of early childhood education centres, 78% of primary and intermediate schools and 81% of secondary schools.
Enviroschools involves tamariki [children] connecting with and exploring the environment, then planning, designing, and taking action in their local places in collaboration with their communities. Enviroschools also aims to uplift the wellbeing of the whole school, community, and ecosystem, while learning how society and the economy can be nourished through the natural systems that provide life.
An estimated 25,000-plus students are involved in Northland’s Enviroschools programme across more than 150 schools, kindergartens and early childhood centres.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
