We are very proud to be an Enviroschool. Our school is currently working on our new Enviroschools Vision, which ties in nicely with our new school build. We value our Enviroschools journey and continue to reflect and envision ways we can become a more sustainable school. Our whole school Science Curriculum is designed around student action and giving tamariki a voice and the ability to create and lead environmental change.
Here at Burnside Primary School we aim to foster a generation of children who instinctively think and act sustainably. Sustainability has many different interpretations.
To us it means living in a country where people work with positive energy to connect with each other, their cultural identity, and their land, to create a healthier, peaceful, more equitable society. It means the regeneration of resilient, connected communities in which people care for each other and the environment. It means valuing our Maori traditions, and celebrating diversity so that everyone thrives
We believe this can be achieved at Burnside Primary School through our Enviroschools programmes which support our students to plan, design and implement sustainability actions that are important to our school and our community.
Monarch Butterfly
We are continuing with our raising and tagging Monarch Butterflies! The butterfly garden was established in 2009 after an investigation project by year 1 and 2 tamariki. The focus of their learning was to investigate areas in the school that needed to be improved and through their learning they identified an area close to their classroom that gave enough sunlight and also support for overwintering monarch butterflies. They researched the life cycle of a caterpillar through to a monarch butterfly and found out what plants needed to be planted to support the growth of caterpillars, plants that would support natural control over pests and also those plants that would attract the butterflies and support them to lay eggs. They decided to make it shaped like a butterfly and have plantings that made the wings of the butterfly symmetrical. Over the years from this initial investigation the tamariki have been involved in keeping the garden going but there have been problems with frost, poor soil and an ongoing need to replace plants from year to year, incurring a lot of costs. A watering system was put in, bricks were sourced from the wider community and were concreted in place by parents of the tamariki and other local businesses have been supportive of soil and plants. Tamariki have also contributed to the National programme of tagging butterflies that emerged late in the season. This is through the Monarch Butterfly Society of NZ who have provided online resources and learning, with staff completing their learning programmes to support the learning of the tamariki. Tamariki learnt how to put the stickers on to the butterflies safely and to log the released butterflies into the computer, identifying the sex of the butterfly and describing its wings and overall state on release. They also recorded what direction they were flying off to on release. A further group of tamariki have also identified the need to build a structure to try and establish a more permanent home for the butterflies as each year we need to go back and start again with new plantings due to frost. This ongoing project provides authentic contexts for learning in statistics, mathematics, science and design.
Predator Free BPS
This year we became a predator free school! Students from Kahu (year 3/4) at Burnside Primary were learning whakatauki about the dawn chorus. They asked why we no longer heard the dawn chorus. From this discussion students decided they wanted to bring back native birds to Burnside Primary. We applied to be a Predator Free School and were successful. Through this program Kahu students have learnt about our native animals and why they are so amazing. We looked at predators and the negative effect they are having on all of our native species. Students got to go on a field trip to Riccarton bush to experience what Burnside would have been like and see the Predator Free Program in action. After this students made tracking tunnels to find what pests we had in our native garden. They found the tracks of mice, rats, hedgehogs and maybe a stoat or a possum. Students then decided what traps to buy and we have just put out our traps. So far we have caught 3 rats, 2 mice and 1 hedgehog. The next plan for the students is to encourage more native birds by learning about what they eat, and therefore making sure we plant their favourite trees but also have bird feeders. We are keeping track of our catches through Trap.NZ and are doing the NZ Garden Bird Survey each year to track our progress on bringing back the dawn chorus.
Nature Agents
We became a Nature Agents school in 2019. Nature Agents is an EOS Ecology ‘Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom’ (LEOTC) programme for schools. It engages students with real science – aiming to inspire them to make the sciences part of their education and life. Students in Pukeko take samples of our local stream and record data on stream health. They upload this to GIS online and their data is shared and compiled with data about water health in New Zealand. Next year we aim for more classes to be involved in this program.
Native Tree Growing and Awareness
This year BPS became a TREEmendous school. With the help of Project Crimson and Trees For Canterbury we planted 700 native trees in our school field. We had a community planting day where many of our families were involved in planting and mulching. All trees were chosen from our cultural narrative and were originally found in Burnside. We have developed a strong relationship with Trees For Canterbury and have started raising our own natives from seeds harvested on our own site. Next year we are planning to take groups of students to Trees For Canterbury to learn skills in native tree growing.
Orchards in Schools
We have watched our orchard trees grow for two years now. Through this program we have been gifted 15 orchard trees and most importantly are taught how to look after the trees. Every few months Mary Tingey from the Horticultural Society comes in to teach us how to plant, prune, mulch and harvest our trees.
Waste Management
We have been focussing on reducing our landfill waste at BPS. With the help of Toni for Enviroschools we completed a waste audit to see not only what waste we were producing but where it goes. The audit showed that we were not recycling properly and had a lot of food waste going to landfill. We found that 80% of our landfill waste did not need to go to landfill. From this information the students decided to make several changes. We now have red lanfil, yellow mixed recycling, organics, paper and cardboard bins. All of our organics goes into either our 3 worm farms or our compost pile to be turned back into compost for our raised garden beds. Our cardboard and paper are collected by waste management and recycled locally. We also collect reward points for how much paper and cardboard we recycle and we get free native trees as a reward through the Paper For Trees Program. This year we introduced a white bin for recycling old pens and felts through Terracycle, so far we have recycled 10kg of pen waste. We did another waste audit at the end of last year and we have far less waste going to landfill. We still have a ways to go but it will be interesting to see the results of our next waste audit.
The Million Metres Stream Project
We were involved again this year in the million meters stream project where we were riparian planting by our local stream at Jellie Park. This important project partnering with our Nature Agents gets students to become Kiatiaki of our local stream.
Clean Up Day
All students at BPS were involved in the Clean Up Day event again this year. Our junior students cleaned up our own school, our senior students cleaned up Jellie Park.