Nature trail update.

The Hamilton East School nature trail is having a facelift.
We have a fantastic group of parents who are organising working bees to create a sustainable track. The next working bee is this Thursday morning 7am-11am. If you are available with a spade, wheelbarrow or just a helping hand, please let us know. A group of Enviro students will also be working on the track at this time.

We also need punga to strengthen part of the track. You can help by 'sponsoring a punga'. Please check out the board and see Ms Jones at the gate for more information.








Here are some images of Tui Hub exploring the progress on the nature trail this week. They were practising note-taking in preparation for their historic walk.

Arbour Day 2018

It was a perfect blue-skied first day of winter.  

Our enviro agents and Ms Jones went to Waiwhakareke Reserve to plant trees on Arbour Day.

Over 1500 people from schools all over the Waikato turned out.

 We planted over 17,500 native trees.

We were given some native trees to take back to school to plant on our nature trail.

 Last week some of the enviro agents planted the trees with Sonja. We planted a grove of rewarewa above the shed on Putikitiki.

Our wonderful parent leader Sonja.

It was a slippery muddy slope to work on!!

We planted a little group of lancewoods at the top of the bank.

Butterfly tagging

We are taking part in a Monarch Butterfly tagging scheme this term.

We have been given lots of small stickers with a code on them, that we have to stick onto the wing of a monarch butterfly. We then put the details from the sticker into a database and if someone else finds it and sees the sticker and adds in the details, we can see how far it has flown.

You have to be really careful when you stick the sticker on the wing so you don't damage the butterfly.

If you want to have a look check out this link!!

Kitchen Garden

Our Kitchen garden is alive and kicking. We are lucky to have Jennie coming in each week to to do gardening with our enviro agents.

Look what was harvested today!!

1. 

   Delicious!!!!

Bioblitz day!!

The 2018 Enviro team spent an afternoon at Rotopiko Wetlands ato take part in the Bioblitz. This is an event where scientists get togther to count and study all the species that they can find, it is a bit of a stock take of species in New Zealand.

We had an amazing time learning about different fungi and insects and hunting for our own insects to show the scientists. We also learnt...

• about the different predators that we have in New Zealand
• how to work out the age of a tree without chopping it down to count rings (you measure right around the trunk)
• how people climb the trees to check out what eco systems are happening at the top 
• how to catch different insects and identify them

It was a fabulous day, check out this video and photos and a big thank you to Monica for inviting us and showing us around!

Arbor Day at Waiwhakareke

On Friday the 2nd June a group of about 22 students, some parent helpers and a teacher gathered their spades, gum boots and rain coats and drove out to Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park to get involved in planting trees for Arbor day 2017.

Waiwhakareke is a 60 hectare ecological restoration project and every year on Arbor day, hundreds of people gather to help plant trees to restore the area to a flourishing natural forest, wetland and lake eco system. 

At Hamilton East School we are very proud to be a part of this project. We learnt how to dig the right shape hole and carefully put the sapling tree into the ground. We covered the roots back up and gave the sapling a strength test with a little push from side to side.


The rain held off for the planting but it was EXTREMELY muddy (and very fun)!!

Morning tea

Morning tea

Taking the plant out of the pot

Digging holes

Putting in the plant

Thanks to all our parent helpers who dug so many holes and pulled students out of the mud,  and to Dugan for driving us there!
For more information about Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage park have a look at this site