Our Eco blog is an online community that shares ideas about Sustainability
Education in and around our school community.
Our Eco blog was born from a think tank, called the Balmoral Eco
Warriors. The Balmoral Eco Warriors is an all age’s
key environmental action group at our school who have a passion for
keeping things sustainable since around 2008. The Balmoral Eco Warriors meet
weekly on Thursdays in Room 26 – all new members are welcome.
At Balmoral School we endorse the New Zealand Curriculum key value of
Ecological Sustainability. As educators we encourage this value, to
be modelled and explored via embedding sustainability education through real
life learning experiences, such as the inquiry process through
cross curricular learning such as Art, Literacy, Maths, Rich Tasks, ICT
and Philosophy, by utilising all of the Balmoral Habits. As a school
we work closely in partnership with the Auckland Council and
their Educators around waste and gardening.
Our School is a Waste Wise School which means our school is on a contract
with the Auckland Council to help educate our students and the
community in ways to help reduce rubbish and recycle where possible such
as paper, food scraps and general waste. We have approximately 50 kilograms of
waste coming out of our school every day. Our goal and challenge as a school
is to reduce this by recycling, reducing to ensure all lunchbox rubbish is returned
home to be responsibly recycled. Waste found at school is to be
placed in the school waste stations that situated around the school, Red
coloured bins for general waste, yellow for recyclables and blue bins for
strictly paper.
We also have a school orchard on the far banks of our school field that
we have worked in partnership with the community, planting, pruning, and
fertilising. We also have
Whanau/Syndicates gardens wherein by classes are encouraged to grow vegetables
with their classes and have garden to table experiences, explore and experience
the process of the Farmers Market which will be held after school and/or the
PTA Great Day Out and celebrate Matariki- the Maori New Year by planting vegetables
as part of this annual celebration.
If you have any ideas and suggestions you would like to share about
Sustainability Education please email me rebecca@balmoral.school.nz
Together we can Manaaki Whenua - care for our land.
