What Size Is Our Footprint?


Waiouru Primary School Care Code
Formed Term 4, 2009
 
Caption: Help, not harm

Aim:
We want to leave a positive footprint whenever we can, and if we can't, then we will leave as low a footprint as possible.
 
How:
We will sort our rubbish and dispose of it properly
We will reduce our rubbish
We will plant trees and plants
We will attract native birds to our gardens
We will use our knowledge to help our community to make good choices
We will partner with our township, the Army, DOC and other organisations to make a difference
We will recycle items from our community as our learning resources or to make money
We will always have an environmental focus in our learning topics
We will think hard about the things that we buy – the production of the product, the packaging and the environmental impact.


Term 4 - 2009
We have had 2 major projects on the go this term.
The first is to join with DOC, the Army, Enterprise Waiouru and the RDC to spearhead the design of a garden on SH1 alongside the Army Museum. Students have been involved from the inception - making concept designs for the garden, which will incorporate a memorial Army garden, recreational tracks and enterprise opportunities. 2010 will see students extend consultation adn planning with these groups and some of the planting will begin.   

The second of our projects has been making craft items from reusable or recyclable materials. All students have been involved in making a range of craft - mosaics, coiled paper baskets, candle holders, garden sunny flowers, flax flowers, pumice candle holders and utilising our community garden - vegetables and  worm juice. Money raised from the sale of these items will be used to fund microenterprise projects through kiva
(www.kiva.org) - lining our efforts to supporting people around the world out of poverty.



Our Envirogroup had a road trip in early December 2008 to check out the green endeavours of people in our area. Mrs Corbett also invited Hikoi (from Enviroschools) and Rose Whyte (from Community Liaison with the Army).

We visited 2 other schools, our local recycling depot, the Ohakune dump (closed) and Transfer Station and finally, Sandy Eades' rocket growing business in Ohakune.
We have come back with great ideas for the next 6 month plan.

Term 3 2009
As part of our learning in maths (measaurement) and being enviromentally responsible for our world, the whole school is taking part in an audit of our practices in terms of energy usage and waste disposal. The audit we undertake this year will form baseline data and be the first step in determining where we need to put our efforts to create a sustainable school community, and thus contribute to a more sustainable nation. We will then repeat the audit each year, with the Enviroschools Foundation processing the information and generating progress reports for each school. The data is converted into standardised performance measures for schools to see how they are doing in comparison with other schools, regionally and nationally..
We are joining hundreds of schools throughout New Zealand in learning for sustainability – a holistic process that has a range of environmental, educational, economic and social benefits for students and their community.
The Measuring Change tool was developed by The Enviroschools Foundation with support from the Ministry of Education. You can find out more on
www.measuringchange.org.nz