Our class is all about gardening. We aim to grow, care and eat our vegetables! Today we planted our Little Garden seedlings and look forward to watching them germinate over the next few weeks. They will be going home for the students to plant in their own gardens.
Our sweet peas and beans have been growing beautifully and were laden with pods so the students had an afternoon feast. Some enjoyed them more than others but overall it was great to see everyone try them.
Today we went to Lake Gem to plant trees as part of the Dune Lake Restoration Project. This kaupapa aligns with our school values of Porihanga (Community and Partnership) and Kaitiakitanga (Caring for the Environment) as well as our local community curriculum focus.
It was a fabulous effort with 100 students and 20+ whanau helping. We managed to plant 1700 plants and go for a big hikoi around the lake, all before lunch! Our students were marvellous and represented Paparore School beautifully. We have been planting at the lake for years and it was lovely to have one of our former students there as part of the planting crew. We look forward to the next planting opportunity.
Karen Lucich (Summit Forests)
Dune Lakes are threatened habitats and Summit Forest has identified this site as having high conservation and recreation values. Summit aims to plant 1000 eco-source seedlings annually around Arbor Day. Seed is collected and grown by Bushland Trust at Kaitaia Intermediate School. Many schools including Pompallier, Awanui and Oruaiti have been involved over the 12 years this project has been running but Paparore School are kaitiakitanga of this area.
With everyone’s support, this wetland area has made a momentous transition from totally degraded to its now pristine state, providing habitat for threatened birds and plants and feeding clean water into Lake Ngatu. Last year Summit’s paddock to the south of Lake Gem was planted with 700 Pohutukawa seedlings expanding the project by 3 hectares.
Recently Summit Forest has installed new mountain bike access gates. Kaitaia College students are marking out a new recreational loop track to join the existing Lake Gem track through Te Hiku Forest to Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē and to the Lake Ngatu track. We were spoilt by a sunny day for planting on Friday when 1000 seedlings, mostly Kanuka (with some Karaka, Houpara, Manuka, Harakeke, Tī kōuka and Kohekohe) plus an additional 500 Pohutukawa seedlings were planted.
This is a great community effort we can all enjoy, including the birds and fish for many years to come. Thanks for your support to make this happen.
