Sustainable Communities and Kai Hukanui School Year 5/6 Sustainable Elective Term 2, 2013
The No Dig Gardens First of all, back in 2012, we researched, planned and prepared our no-dig gardens for students to care for. We worked in cooperative teams. The names of the teams for 2013 were: Banana Brothers, Funky Fertilizers, The Gummy Worms, The Busy Buzzy Bees and The Fabulous Fertilisers. Some of the fruit and vegetables we planted in our gardens were: strawberries, mint, celery, cauliflower, potato, kale, carrots, garlic, spinach and calendula (edible flowers). We enjoyed tasting these healthy foods, so we thought we would like to grow them for other students in our school who might not have tried them. It s so much fun growing, eating and cooking your own food.
The problem In March, 2013, one of our Year 3 classes, Room 23 noticed that the fruit from the apple tree was falling on the ground and being wasted. Some of their solutions for this problem were: Put boxes under the trees for the apples to fall in. Get the seniors to invent a machine that catches and cleans the apples. Get the senior students to deliver the fruit to classes. We liked their ideas and we thought we would investigate them further, and also add our own solutions because things needed to change! While we were thinking about a long term solution, we picked the last of the apples and gave them to Room 23. They really enjoyed eating them.
The Journey We brainstormed about what sustainability, communities and kai meant to us because these three ideas were now our study s focus. We came up with a lot of thoughts and our own definitions about these important main ideas. This helped us developed our understanding so we could explain it to others. Our books were almost full up with our awesome ideas, even before our study was finished. We reflected on all the food gardens to find the positive, negative and interesting things about them, and we composted and planted the gardens. Our teamwork was excellent.
Some of our 28 Ideas. Finding a Solution We thought that all the student s idea were worth trying but we had to only choose one idea. We chose to make a Free Community Fruit, Vegetable and Herb Table. So we started to plan. We had 28 ideas to work through and decide on, to make sure it would be successful. We wrote letters to ask our principal and the Board of Trustees if we could go ahead with the table, voted to see what the best possible spot to set up our table would be, what day to set up each week, how our community could donate too, set up a roster, advertised and informed our community. This meant a lot of creative thinking and more teamwork. Presenting letters to our principal Our thoughts on team work.
The Community Free Fruit, Vegetable and Herb Table is Here We liked this solution of ours because it is something that would help people in our community and would help us too. We decided to make a table that would give away our excess fruit for free and people can (if they wanted to) donate their excess fruit to us and we would give it away. For example some people donated: Mandarins, oranges, capsicum, tamarillos and more lemons. This is all healthy food that students could try and they sure did!
The Community Free Fruit, Vegetable and Herb Table We decided to create a logo and a sign. We voted and Maia s logo was the winner by one point. Then we decided on a sign to put beside/on top of our Community Free Fruit, Vegetable and Herb Table. Logan was the winner by three points. All through this planning, we were busy sowing seeds, planting, cooking and eating healthy foods (just like ones growing in our gardens). We really enjoyed our Cauliflower Fritters.
The Grandview Gardens. We were very interested in what other people in the Hamilton community were doing to encourage families and communities to develop their own healthy gardens. We went on a trip to Grandview Community Garden in Hamilton to learn about and taste different foods that we would like to plant, and to see how allotment gardens work. We saw a lot of similarities with what we do at school. At the Grandview Community Garden, composting our morning tea food scraps, allotment gardens and helping with mulching.
Mr. C s Garden We also wanted to find out what was happening in our school community. We went to one of our grandparent s home gardens. Mr. C. has been growing his own healthy veggies for many years and he now gives them to his friends and his grandchildren. He made us laugh too!
The Finished Item After a long time we finally finished the Community Free Fruit, Vegetable and Herb table. But this is definitely not the end of our Never Ending Project. We thought about the challenges we could have once the table is in action and we planned for some of these, like left over food and student allergies. We also learnt that you don t have to get something back if you give something. It was also important to keep our community informed, so we put an article in the school newsletter so everyone would know what we are doing. Just as importantly, we learnt about Tikanga, Matariki and Maori traditions.
The Table s Progress Since Jun 26, 2013, we have been running our table every Thursday morning from 8.30am. We plan to keep it going forever. That way it is sustainability in action and fits our motto of The Never Ending Project. When we had finished our planning, we shared our learning with our families. They gave us great feedback and feed forward comments.
Sharing Day Parent feedback was amazing. At our sharing day, parents wrote comments. Some were: I think it is awesome that the students have learnt about giving back to their community. Thanks to this study, my son now wants to grow healthy food for our family and to also give to the Community Table. I was really impressed with all the work the kids have done. I especially enjoyed the stall idea and the concept of giving healthy food without expecting anything in return. I like how this project is linked to the real world. Grandma - I m looking forward to going to Sophie s for dinner to eat her spinach. It is really good to see children excited about edibles that are green.
Student Reflections Because of this study, I now do more things freely without getting something in return and I care for my own garden. I help my neighbours and give them our lemons if they want them. These are the most significant changes for me. When I was on the Community Table, it was great seeing kids enjoying fruit, herbs and veggies. I enjoyed finding our more about sustainable communities and kai and how they all come together. I also liked being in the gardens. We were creative because we did something that people wouldn t normally do because we gave away for free, fruit that was going to otherwise be wasted. I hope that in the future that the community table continues and that children add their ideas to it. At our sharing, one of the parents said that it has been great seeing the energy and excitement that the students showed about their gardens. Another parent said they like the idea of our table, of giving without expecting anything in return. I loved being in this elective. It helped me have a different way of thinking about sustainability, community and kai. Sophie Year 5 When I look back on the sustainable communities and kai study, I see no wasted fruit or veggies in the whole of Hukanui School because of the Community Table but we wouldn t have got far without the twenty weeks of hard work and letters about apples being wasted from Room 23. I enjoyed working in the gardens in this elective study because you get your hands mucky and get to plant things you haven t tried before. Everything about this project, and all the decisions were made by students. The students can say These are our decisions. This project is different from other projects because it is not just about the children, it is about the whole community. Elijah Year 5
Hukanui School Students in Action