thank-you nathan hills

we had a great time with nathan hills. He has a lot of knowledge in his brain that we learnt. We all hope you can come back and look at our wetlands sometime.

Yours sincerely
Wetland Extreme Team


P.S. nathan you are great to learn stuff from. We will miss all your hard work at St Josephs Waitara.:)

Wetland Weeders

The Wetland Weeders are a team of students lead by teacher Melanie Lynskey who devote sunny lunch times to weeding the wetland. Included below are a selection of photos showing them in action.

Working Bee

On the 16th of June W.E.T ran a working bee to try and fix up some of the problems in the wetland. We talked about this in an earlier post. The edited map below shows how much the wetland has been extended to include a boggy patch on the field.

A photo from ground level also shows how it has been extended. Overgrowing plants on the main path were dug up and replanted in this new strip. Note it has been raining alot thus why all the water.

Plant Detectives go birdie

Gabriel and Francis at work building a bird house.

Animatologists

Sound recordings
Bird spotter Tayla in action

Isaak recording bird songs

WETLAND GARDEN☺

We are trying to plan out the best place and best things we need for a wetland 'dream garden'. We want to include everyones thoughts and opinions, so we are going to make a survey to gather ideas from the staff and children of st Joseph's school Waitara.We will base our dream garden on the feedback we will receive from our survey. Here are some of our ideas:
● An Archway in-to the wetlands area
● A book containing the history of the wetlands
● 2 areas, one for learning and the other for eating (Maybe)

Survey feedback

Last week wetland extreme team sent out a survey to all the teachers in our school✟.

Our feed back was:
● Bird feeders ● Bird houses ● Maori sculptures
● Catholic sculptures ● Signage/labels
● Zen garden/peace garden Outdoor classroom
● Guided tours A clear roof Clear walls
More shelter
● Working bee ● More fruit trees ● Mulch
● Naming of our wetland

World Famous in Waitara!

WITT Journalism student Steve Dixon was a surprise visitor on the regular Thursday W.E.T day. Steve interviewed a number of the proud Wetland Extreme Team to help put together a story due hopefully to run in the Midweek newspaper.

Pictured are the Wetland Tour Guides with Steve. Also in the photo is the weekly wetland newletter and the Wetland Extreme Team journal. The journal is updated like this blog so visitors to St Joseph's can catch up on what has been happening.

Tour guides running some lunch time games for the younger kids. Usually they run the interactive tours in the wetland but today it was too wet.

June 26th 2011: Plant detectives pointing out some drainage problems

Plant detectives went for a walk through the wetland during a spell in the rain and looked at a few problems in the wetland.
The problems were:
A) Water is getting close to the path
B) One corner of the school field is still boggy
C) A few more trees needed to be planted to make sure fruit and flowers are in the wetland for animals all year round)
D)Some of the flaxes and toitoi are starting to grow over the walking path and need to be moved
E) The concrete stepped paths and wooden seats are dissappearing as the plants get bigger

Due to be added soon is a map showing the problem areas. The Detectives have come up with some solutions and will run these past key staff in the school before they put the plan into action.
PS We might need a few extra pairs of hands!

Enviroschools Regional Event

Ten members of the Wetland Extreme Team (W.E.T)attended the 2011 Enviroschool's regional event at Highlands Intermediate. The day was a huge success and luckily was fine so didn't result in any made dashes for cover. W.E.T shared with the packed assembly hall details of the schools wetland project including this blog and the journal.

The team showing off the finished flax flowers with Puke Ariki's Ngareo Akariri (Poutaki Rauemi) and daughter Joshia.

Peter Heard (Envirochools Facilitator) interviewing at the 60 Springs flax weaving station.

Animatologists tracking tunnels

On thursday 5th of May we set some tracking tunnels.
Tracking tunnels are long boxes that have tracking cards with ink and some bait in the middle,so when a animal goes in to get the bait they get their paws wet in ink and leave prints when they exit the tunnel.
We checked the tunnels on the 12th of May. One was damaged by the rain so nothing came up. The other two had no bait but had mice prints. For the bait,we used old extra crunchy peanut butter and a bit of raw meat.
The tunnels were spaced out so they covered most of the wetland area. The wet weather has been a bit of a problem so we were praying for the sun to come out.

Photo: Isaac checking a tracking tunnel card for footprints

Tayla, Isaak and Connor with the evidence

Mice footprints

Cat scratch

Wetland draining

The total of all wetlands in New Zealand is shrinking. In the Taranaki region less than 8% of wetlands are left.

The Taranaki Regional Council surveyed wetlands in 1996 by looking at aerial maps. They counted 717 wetlands. They did the same in 2008 and the total was 654. It had decreased by 63. One of the reasons they have disappeared is because farmers are draining their wetlands to improve grass growth.

Land before (find the RED dot)

Land after (RED dot and no more wetland)

Wetlands have good purposes. They are like a sponge and suck up the water when there is a flood and its a great habitat for native plants and animals. We need to protect our wetlands because they are very important to us and the animals that live in them. They are also a major part of our environment.

Photos: Taranaki Regional Council

The History of the St Joseph's Waitara wetland

Photo showing drainage problems of the school sports field

On the 20th of march 2010,our school St Joseph's Waitara decided to put our plan into action, to solve the problem of our boggy school fields. We all took part in helping to find some solutions to the problem which was to develop a wetland next to our school grounds.
After lots of thinking and drawing we drew up a plan with the help of David-john Cole that would work.De Welch put the sketch out to all of the experts who helped with the final design. Thankfully we got the help of Project Crimson,Rudd Klienpaste and the Treemendous Makeover Team,by writing in 150 words or less why we deserve the wetland makeover.
We ha an awesome day of gardening and well being famous,considering that the newspaper was there:). Iyarna,Madison and Casey were lucky enough to get into the newspaper.
The wetland has had a lot of things happen to it over its early years.
We have had weeds overtake the plants but we now have a solution to the problem at hand but we can write about that another day.

Aerial view of St Joseph's Waitara 2005
(Before the wetland was developed)

Aerial view of St Joseph's Waitara 2010
(during the construction of the wetland)

Plant detectives in wetland.

Today on the 7th of april 2011 room 7 has been working with Nathan Hills and learning about the plants and which ones are weeds and if they are poisonous or not. Some of the weeds that we learnt about were woolly nightshade,deadly nightshade and pampas. Plant detectives have been out in our wetlands and identifying poisonous plants , native plants and weeds . They decide what plants might attract birds and bugs to live here in our wetland. We found that during June, July and August not much nectar or fruit was available for animals. The Puriri tree fruits and flowers during this time and so is one we hope to plant when the time is right. This may encourage birds to live in the wetland all year around instead of just visiting (see red arrow in bird food calendar below).

What we will be doing

We are split up into 4 groups who all have different jobs,but they all come together to make our wetlands a fun and interactive area. Our group names are journal design,operation party!,plant detectives and animatologists.

JOURNAL DESIGN:In journal design we design our blog on the internet and show photos and videos of the animal and plant life. Also about the up and coming events.

OPERATION PARTY!:Operation party come up with great ideas to put on the blog and our events to do with the wetlands.

PLANT DETECTIVES:study the plants in the wetlands and find out how they survive through the years. Also the different species in the wetlands.

ANIMATOLOGISTS:Study the animal life at the wetland and see what they eat and how they stay alive. They also find out who their enemies are.

Published by Journal Design. Cody,Terina and Louise.

Who are the Wetland Extreme Team (W.E.T) ?

The Wetland Extreme Team are eighteen Year 7 and 8 students from St Joseph's Waitara School in Taranaki, New Zealand. Our names are James,Tayla,Steven,Louise,Madison,Isaac,Francis,Gabriel,Rose,P.J,Terina,Jamie,Iyarna,Che-Leigh,Cody,Matthew,Connor and Hayden. We will be blogging about the history, current research and future ideas for the schools wetland. All of which is hoped will make the wetland more interactive and fun for everyone to enjoy.

Working to help W.E.T achieve the mission is 60 Springs Environmental Educator Nathan Hills.

60 Springs is based at Puke Ariki and run in partnership with Shell Exploration New Zealand Limited and the Taranaki Regional Council.


Follow this blog to learn more!