St. Joseph’s School Waitara 2011
60 Springs’ Nathan Hills worked with a group of 18 senior students to develop their wetland into a living classroom for the school community. Together they created the Wetland Extreme Team (WET). Students were split into four groups and set different missions.
The Plant Detectives studied the flora, the Animatologists focused on the fauna, Operation Party invented fun outdoor activities and the Journal Design students recorded the wetland’s growing story with pictures, words and a blog. That journal was on the school’s reception desk for all to see!
Students got grubby identifying plant species, setting, baiting and checking tracking tunnels for footprints, fixing drainage problems, investigating wetland design, surveying, planting, weeding and building bird boxes. Some students made up different games and activities to encourage others to use the wetland, while others took guided tours during the lunch break for younger children in the school.
Various tracking techniques were used to find out what animals lived in or visited the wetland. These included land and water surveys using binoculars, tracking tunnels, fish traps and D nets. The team detected mice, hedgehogs and cats and saw white heron, pukeko, blackbirds, ducks and fantails. A frog released earlier in the year was identified as a Southern Bell frog. The fish traps and D nets captured freshwater shrimp, water boatman, worms and damselfly larvae.
A survey of the wetland vegetation identified that nectar and fruit were lacking during the months of June, July and August. As a result the plant detectives selected and planted a puriri tree as something to fill the gap, because it fruits and flowers throughout most of the year.
As part of their projects the students also conducted two school-wide surveys. Feedback from the pupils, teachers and staff suggested that more fundraising was needed to allow them to add signage and artistic sculptures to the wetland. They also discovered they needed more mulch to keep on top of the ever-growing weeds. People also wanted to encourage more insects and bright flowers, so classes have already started growing swan plants for the wetland.
As an extra bonus the Wetland Extreme Team attended the regional Enviroschools event, where they had a chance to present all their hard work to the other schools attending.