“Te Taiao O Tamaki”- The Environment of Tamaki.

“Te Taiao O Tamaki”- The Environment of Tamaki.

Learning Focus:

How do we impact the environment around us and what can we do to lessen our effect on it.

Specific Focuses:

• How has the local area changed over the past 50 years?
• Water Pollution
• Air Pollution
• Rubbish- School/Household
• Waste Reduction School/Household
• Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
• Global Warming

The video below was made by Room 5 as part of our campaign to raise awareness about how we are treating our environment.

Water Pollution- Creek Visit (Week 1 & 2)

To properly see how we impacted our local environment we went on a class trip to the creek at the start of Term 1. Students were asked to closely observe their surroundings on the way. 

The children found an alarming amount of rubbish both in the creek and in the areas surrounding it, most of which was making its way into our waterways. The children decided that they wanted to clean this up, so we collected it all into bags. We then sat down as a class and discussed how the items could have got there and what was likely to happen to them now. We also talked about how the creek flowed into the sea and was therefore also polluting our oceans. Here are some of the questions which were prompted by the trip:

• How did the rubbish get into the creek?
• How long does it take to decompose?
• How will this affect our waterways?
• Where does this creek flow into?
• How does it affect the creatures that live in there?

• How does this affect the food chain?
• If rubbish/pollution is swallowed by the creatures that live in the water do we then end up eating it when we eat them?
• What affect does it have on the water that we drink?

Analysing The Rubbish We Collected

We then separated all the rubbish we found into 3 different categories to analyse what was being discarded and the best way to deal with it.

The 3 categories were:

Biodegradable, Recyclable & Landfill

The questions raised were:

What sort of things are biodegradable? What rubbish can we recycle? What should go into landfill? What are the effects on the planet?

A few days later we were visited by a lady who worked at...

Waste Management New Zealand

She gave us a more detailed understanding of the waste management process in Auckland and some helpful hints for us to employ to help the environment. This kick started our focus on......

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE

The class then set recycling goals for themselves both at school and at home and started our environmental campaign by making videos and posters and educating others.