Summerland Primary School—30 May 2017

Today a group of year five and six students from Summerland Primary School in west Auckland spent a day at CUE Haven, planting, learning and exploring.

The group included teacher, Joel Cambridge and his students Adam, Alizay, Angel, Ayesha, Azariah, Braydon, Brieze, Brooke, Dhruv, Fred, Gaon, Havana, Jacob, James, Kayl, Khyra, Lydia, Maria, Nadia, Nayshal, Pari, Rahaf, Reid, Rishap. Shawaiz, Tana, TJ, VJ, Watson, Zac and Zion.   Also joining us for the day were parents Atawhai, Folau, Kerri, Krista, Pippa and Robyn.

We started out with a quick morning tea.  Thank you Nestle NZ for providing the much appreciated hot drinking chocolate for the students.

Mahrukh gave the students some background on the CUE Haven project and spent some time talking about the impacts of farming and development on native plants and animals and waterways and the benefits of restoration planting.

Thomas then gave a safety briefing and a description of the planned activities for the day.

We started out with a tree planting session.  Today the students planted cabbage trees, carex, cyperus, harakeke, mahoe and manuka.

The students did a great job dealing with the weeds and the wet conditions.  They also made friends with some of the locals as well!

After about an hour of planting, we broke and went for a short bush walk.  Thomas explained different aspects of the restoration project and showed the students different types of trees and plantings.

The students saw the site of last year’s land slip and Thomas explained how planting would help restore and stabilize the area.

Thomas also did a short session on pest control and the students got to see how tracking tunnels and DOC 200 and Timms traps and bait stations work.

We then had a quick lunch and the final activity was a short session on invertebrates and insects.  We had set up bug traps out in the orchard the previous day and the students used magnifying glasses and identification charts to identify as many different bugs as they could.

Joel explained the exercise to his students and showed them how to collect and analyse the bugs they found.

The students then broke into small groups and they used magnifying glasses to study the bugs and identify them.

When they’d finished identifying the bugs, the budding scientists used the magnifying glasses to explore other plants and animals.  It was great to see their curiosity and enthusiasm.

We very much enjoyed having the Summerland School group.  The students were very enthusiastic and interested in learning about nature and it was great to see the way they cooperated and helped each other.

We’d like to thank Joel for organizing the trip and helping to make the day so special.

Many thanks also to all the parents who came out to help and added a lot of value to the day.

And most of all, a very BIG THANK YOU to all the students. We really enjoyed meeting all of you and working with you.  We were very impressed with how polite and hardworking you all were and also how enthusiastic and keen you were to learn new things.

Thank you for planting the trees. You have made a significant contribution not just to CUE Haven but to our environment and our community.

CUE Haven will be gifted to the wider community to use and enjoy as a native forest reserve and you should all be very proud of your efforts as you have helped in the creation of a native nature reserve which the community will enjoy for generations.  Thank you! Thank you!

We wish you the best of luck with your studies and we do hope you will come back and see us (and your trees) again soon!

Thank You!!