This is a transcript of Anna's speech, which illustrates how students were involved in education "for" the environment at Otari School.
At Otari School we use the environment as part of our learning in many different ways. One of these ways is through the Gardening Club. This has been running now for 5 years and is very successful. This is how it works – two children from each class are picked, usually a boy and a girl. They meet every Tuesday afternoon from lunch time to home time. Last year I was in the gardening club which is run by Verena, and I was doing things like weeding the nursery gardens, which is where our potted plants and vegetable gardens are, repotting plants into bigger pots so they can grow properly, and watering, weeding and caring for the plants on the school property.
We also look after the environment by having paper recycling bins in all classes which are emptied daily and taken weekly to the local recycling depot. We also have food scrap bins for any bread, fruit or vege scraps or any biodegradable materials. The food scraps, which are collected daily, are fed to the worms in the worm farm or put in the school compost bin where the scraps are broken down and used in the school gardens. The worm juice (which is good for gardens and plants) is then sold at our annual school fair, along with other plants we have grown throughout the past year. We also give a lot of plants away as gifts and the food we grow in the nursery such as parsley, broccoli, spinach, mint and other greens can be taken home to eat or taken home to be planted in home gardens.
