Environmental Education

On Friday we met with Simon who is going to work with us ona very exciting inquiry unit involving Zero Waste as part of our school Big Idea 'The Skies the Limit'. Simon is the person who works with the local schools and youth groups helping them along their journey towards sustainability. His role is partly funded by the solid waste department of QLDC and he uses two amazing education packages to help him do his work – Enviroschools and Zero Waste Education.

Our Year 4 children are very interested in the environment so this was an obvious context for us. Our Year 4 team and Simon were all buzzing with ideas about where thr children might take this.

Here is Simon's school blog address.Click on the link below.

http://www.wanakawastebusters.co.nz/at-school/blog/

And his other blog
http://efsqueenstownlakes.blogspot.com/

The Breathing Earth

Take a look at this site. We all must do our bit! This makes you think and for this reason, I have included it on our blog.

The Breathing Earth simulation
Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the CO2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the CO2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high.

The Environment and Climate Change
Global warming (aka climate change) is probably the most important issue to face our generation, and quite possibly any generation in history. The worldwide scientific community is virtually unanimous in its agreement that global warming is happening, that that it's our fault. If we let it get out of our control, the consequences - which will already begin occuring in most of our lifetimes - will be catastrophic. Just some of the consequences that can be reasonably expected are rising sea levels, more frequent and more severe natural disasters, large-scale food shortages, plagues, massive species extinctions, unprecendented numbers of refugees, intensified ethnic and political tensions, and a global economic depression the likes of which no one has ever seen.

The situation is still within our grasp, but we must act now, we must act strongly, and we must act together. Individuals, companies, and governments across the globe must each do what they can to reverse climate change. We will never get a second chance.

World Environment Day

Friday was World Environment Day. Every 5th of June is a day used by the United Nations to stimulate worldwide awareness of environmental issues and encourages political attention and action. The theme for 2009 is 'Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change'.
In Room 10 we looked at climate change. We used a Kiwi Conservation Club magazine as our focus.

First we did a quiz about how we can use less energy and make less C02 (as well as help our Mums and Dads save money). After we had talked about our results we set a goal for the rest of the term about how we can help use lessenergy and make less C02.
We completed a climate change wordfinder, wordworm and complteted a spot the difference. Annie read us a great story about Kiri Kiwi & Willie Weka called Willie the Warrior.

We found out that...

• The suns rays shine on the Earth. Their energy keeps our world alive.

• The suns energy would bounce back into space and we'd freeze if the Earth didn't have a blanket to keep the heat in.
• The blanket is invisible air made up of 21% oxygen( which we need to breathe) 78% nitrogen ( which doesn't do anything), 0.1%- 1% water vapour in the clouds, 0.36% carbon dioxide (CO2) and tiny amounts of other gases. The last 3 make up the blanket. We call then GREENHOUSE GASES.
• It's the greenhouse gases that make the blanket work, but adding more greenhouse gases to the air is like putting another blanket on your bed. It makes the whole world warmer.
  
• People are putting more greenhouse gases into the air, especially carbon dioxide.
  
• The world has already warmed by 0.6degrees Celsius. It's likely to be 3degrees Celsius warmer in the next 100 years!
• Getting warmer has consequences for the world - ice and snow will melt which means the sea level will rise. The weather change will mean that some places will get less rain causing droughts. Some places will get more rain which will mean floods. More storms are likely too.
  
• If you put all these consequences together the following might happen...
  
  • Forests will die
  • Plants and animals will have to cope with their homes changing
  • Droughts cause plants and animals to die
  • Houses will be destroyed
  • Floods will wash away crops
• Today there are 6 billion people living on the Earth. we are using up the ancient fossil fuels and putting stored CO2 back into the air. We are cutting down and burning forests.
  
• That is why there is 1/3 more CO2 in the air than there was 300 years ago. That's why the Earth is getting warmer.
• The carbon cycle is not balanced. The carbon being stored is much less than the carbon going into the air.
• What can we do? - We can use energy wisely and carefully(don't waste it). We can reduce, reuse and recycle eg walk to school, reuse containers, buy from the op shop or Wastebusters, hand our clothes on to someone else, use reusable plastic containers instead of gladwrap, don't use plastic bags from the supermarket (take your own cloth bags) and buy a toy that lasts.
  
  
  

Conserve Earth's Resources

The things YOU do can be a BIG help!

Reusing in Room Ten

We plan to use Voice Thread this year so this is a trial run. Next time we will record our comments rather than type them in so tune in soon! Click on the arrow to start and make sure you read the comments. they will appear on the left side above the timer.

Reusing

Today, Simon from Wastebusters, completed our Reusing unit. We made desk tidies and money boxes from different containers, boxes and materials from home. What fun we had! Look at some of our creations

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Reusing

Enviro News

Simon from Wastebusters was in today to teach us about ‘Reusing’. He is teaching us about sustainability. Simon is here for the rest of the week. We need to make less packaging and to help save the Earth’s natural resources. We can do this by reusing things. Reusing means to use things again and again. This helps to keep valuable resources from being put in the rubbish bin and ending up in a landfill.

If you have any plastic bottles, ice cream containers, steel cans, or any other suitable packaging, please send to school by Friday as we are making a piggy bank or desk tidy out of packaging. There are 3 rules – nothing new, no glass and to bring only what we need to school.

Say NO to plastic bags!

Conservation Week 7 - 14 September

Click on the link below to explore this site.
Meet the Locals: Conservation Week 2008 events, activities, videos, education resources and competition « tvnz.co.nz

Our Enviro group is doing a great job to help promote recycling in our school. They want us to design bright, interesting and attractive labels for our bins to help remind us what goes into each bin. They have decided to run a competition to find the best labels for the job. Thanks to this motivated and enthusiastic band of enviro- leaders. Room Ten appreciates everything you do.

World Environment Day

Annie in her design. (Left)

Some enviro friendly

kids. (Middle)

Dara in her garden design (Right)

Environmental Day Activities

Join the Environmental Kids Club (it's American but I couldn't find a NZ one). Click on the link on the left.

Click on the raindrop to see the picture.

What's WRONG With This Picture?!? (Activity with lots of information)

The people in the picture on this site are taking care of their home and car, but they are doing many things that can damage the environment, especially our water. Click on the spots where you think someone is doing something wrong for a surprise.

Reuse & Recycle

Lots of make and do activities. Try these at home. Bring the finished activity to school for 'Show & Tell'.

5th June - World Environment Day

New Zealand is hosting World Environment Day 2008 in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme.

Click on 'Sustainability' to see what is happening .

World Environment Day is an opportunity to raise awareness and promote action on national environment issues.

The theme for World Environment Day 2008 is climate change with a focus on moving towards a low-carbon economy and lifestyle. “Kick the Habit” (the ‘carbon’ habit) is the international slogan for the event.
The theme will also include the role of forest conservation and sustainable forestry in achieving domestic and global climate change goals.

Here are some good sites.

Eco Kids - lots and lots of games about wildlife, climate change,

waste, energy and land-use.