Kura Taiao/Enviroschools Ōtari Trip 2021

Yesterday we went on an Ōtari Bush trip with Ōtari and Houghton Valley Schools. We did a bunch of cool activities and learnt heaps of new things, and, it was just the year sixes! Hooray!

- Mae S

Activities that we did and things that we learned:

Testing the water clearness 

Looking at what critters were in the water to see how healthy it was

 Checking the water temperature

What water types are there; Run, Pool, Riffle 

 Going for a walk in the bush

How old the oldest trees were; 850 years

 That the river came from Zealandia and then the landfill

  That Addison loves Cicadas and kept one on her face the whole time 

We were with two other schools.

Looking at bugs that we found in a pile of debris and naming them by looking at them through a microscope.

  Types of plants; Rimu, Rata, Kawakawa, Whauwhaupaku

 Learning about different types of seeds and how they disperse.

 There is this type of tree that there are only 11 of and we saw one.

- Rani S

Star 1: My First star was doing the kaiwharawhara stream testing, because I liked looking through the magnifying glasses and studying all the creatures closely. I also like looking for the riffles and the runs and pools, and thinking/testing if the stream was healthy (and it was quite healthy). Star 2: My second star was looking through the microscopes and looking at the details of the creatures and leaf litter. there was one scope which showed the details of which leaf or stick or animal was on top of each other. I also found a container in the lab's creature storage with dried up millipedes which were curled up and dead. The bees were kind of FREAKY!!!
  

WISH: My wish was that we had more time to look through the microscopes, because it was really interesting to study all the tiny springtails and bees and things up close, but on the bright side, the stream testing was a bit like it anyway.

- Will J

Another fun thing was looking at bugs in magnifying glasses and we got to look for our own bugs in sticks and leaves and dirt then looking under the microscope. I had lots of fun.

- Ethan F

Another star, a thing that I loved seeing was the 850 year old tree. It was so wide and big. I just wonder how much wood you would get if you chopped it down. And I wonder how much it weighs. Though the tree looks like it is 1000 years old.

- Yoichi S

I loved going on the walk and learning lots of different stories from Māori culture, they really inspired me to look on the bright side of things and we learnt about lots of different berries and their stories.

  My wish is to get out more into the bush and acknowledge all the beautiful things and how lucky we are to have a great country.

- Eddie B

It was also fun planting the kōwhai seeds and I learnt that if you sand the seed it will be easier to let the water in.

- Cleo S

Fresh air. 1 star. Admiring bugs and insects I learnt a lot. 2 star. It was very exciting and it was also fun. My wish is to go there again. To me it's precious.

- Archie M