Education For Sustainability

Manaaki whenua. Manaaki tangata. Haere whakamua.
Care for the land. Care for the people. Go forward.

What is education for sustainability?

At Woodlands Park School we have attained a GREEN GOLD ENVIROSCHOOL standard.This means we promote, educate and encourage sustainability at all levels of the school. The following are some of the ways we look after our people and environment.

LITTERLESS LUNCHES
Students and staff and even board members are encouraged to have litterless lunchboxes. This reduces the amount of disposable wrappers, plastic,cardboard and paper packaging that surrounds so much of our food. Not only is it EASIER for the children to eat their lunches, there is considerably less litter and the organic waste that remains can be recycled, reused, composted or fed to our hungry worms.
WORM FARM AND COMPOSTING
Organic food waste generated at school is collected by our WASTE WIZARDS and composted or fed to the worms in one of our two thriving worm baths.The worm wee these baths generate is regularly bottled and sold to the community as concentrated fertiliser suitable for any plant or soil type.
WASTE WIZARDS
The Waste Wizards are a group of special children who recognise the value of sustainability for the future. They come from all levels of the school and work together to initiate and maintain our waste-wise procedures as well as native seed collection, planting and environmental practices around the school.
PROPAGATION STATION
We have a beautiful new shade house constructed by parent volunteers to propagate locally sourced seeds and grow seedlings for planting in our native bush regeneration area on the school boundary and around Te Kopai Gully Stream. In the future we hope to have enough to supply to other community groups.
NATIVE PLANTING
Every year the entire school plants native trees and shrubs in our native bush regeneration area. Parents and the school community are invited along to help. It is a great way to meet new people - both children and fellow parents and have a fantastic time whether it is hot and sunny or even better - wet and muddy!
SUSTAINABLE FUNDRAISING
Our school has an excellent team of fundraisers who go out of their way to source fundraising projects that are healthy, fun and cost-effective for our school. One of their whole-school fundraisers was to sell quality seeds to encourage our local community to grow seasonal vegetables and flowers. These seeds could also be donated back to the school for planting in our new children's gardens.
FRIENDSHIP GARDENS
Our Friendship Gardens are made up of six big new garden beds on the sunny slopes at the back of the school.These were built by parents and staff over several working-bee’s. Older and younger classes work as teams to grow vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers that are planted, nurtured and harvested by the children.
BEE KEEPING
Our EFS Leader Micah has been active in developing a bee-keeping programme for our students. With local support and recent funding we are looking to purchase our first set of bee-keeping suits! Watch this space for more details as the year progresses.

Care Code for Woodlands Park School

• We encourage people not to litter at our school or in the community.
• We take our plastic and paper rubbish home.
• We try to have litter less lunch boxes.
• We have a worm farm to recycle food scraps and we put our food scraps in the correct place.
• We reuse and recycle waste paper.
• We re-use our water bottles.
• We turn off taps properly after using them.
• We turn off lights when we leave a room and turn off electrical appliances when we are not using them.
• We plant trees and flowers to attract birds and insects, and we look after our gardens and plants.
• We leave insects and animals in their natural habitat.
• We encourage people to use the walking school bus or bike to school.
• We respect the school buildings.
• We model the correct behaviour and teach others about how to care for the environment.