Garston School Visits to share the Enviroschool Journey

On Tuesday the children of Room 11 hosted six Enviroschool leaders Hanna,Wilf, Adrianna, Quinn, Lily and Molly, and their teacher Mrs Buckley.

Mr Mark Oster from Enviro Southland also travelled over with them. He has been part of their journey to their recent Enviroschools silver award.

Mr Mark Oster, Enviro Southland

The visitors were met with a powhiri from the senior kapahaka group. In reply the Garston group sang a waiata and offered us a rosemary plant as a koha.

In the classroom, Mrs Booth shared the Enviro values passed to us from the Maori culture. We retold the story of the Earth mother and sky father, Papatūānuku and Ranginui. We also listened to the legend of Kopuwai, a creature who had the face of a dog, the body of a human but the scales of a reptile.

Lilly and Hannah listening to the legend of Kopowai

Up on the Old Man Range mountains near Alexandra, there is a tall, towering rock pointing to the sky. The Maori believe this is Kopuwai and his dogs, who died there after being trapped in a cave.


Some of us showed our visitors around our school - worm farm, native garden, vege beds, composting, recycling areas and the orchard were some areas we talked about. Finally we visited some classes to look at and listen to their learning about the environment.


We enjoyed singing the Enviroschools waiata and sharing some kai with them. We hope to have the opportunity to visit their school and look at how they are making their school a sustainable place to be.

Sharing a lunch from Subway