Fernworth - The Process of Growing Plants - 23 & 24 October 2019
Over two days around 80 new entrant to Year 2 students from Fernworth Primary school enjoyed the outdoors of the Southland Community Nursery. After looking with wonder at the flowers on the orchard apple trees, discovering traps for pests and following the track looking at all the different types of plants, we outlined what we do to grow plants at the Southland Community Nursery. The classes were very interested as we followed the nursery process from seed to plants ready to be planted. First we looked at flowers introducing some of our amazing NZ native plants. Then we looked at different seeds (different shapes, sizes and colours), what seed pods can look like, talked about how seeds are prepared, and how these are sown so they can sprout leaves or shoots up, and roots down to grow. Curling into seeds we then grew like a plant with shoots (or leaves) growing up and roots growing down. We looked at some baby mānuka and cabbage tree seedlings, and bigger plants of these same species, noting how different in colour baby cabbage trees are from the older plants.
A ”hands on” session followed, potting up some cabbage tree seedlings taking particular care of the roots and making sure they were potted well.
Meanwhile Chris’ groups dodged the rain, and then hail, going around the ponds and bush. Looking for and collecting flowers, old seed pods and seeds, doing leaf bingo to identify the various native plants. Also looking at and talking about the layers of bush from the newly planted plants with their “rabbit guards”, to the 400 year old kahikatea forest trees, and noticing the pest traps all along the way.
The children got to see all that is involved in growing plants. It was great to share our learning, and then we looked again at how seeds are sown, and gave the Fernworth classes the Community Nursery Native Seed Growing Challenge and Seed Packet Design Challenge.
While one day the sun shone, on the other we utilised the education centre well sheltering from the rain (though on one outing a group took shelter from the hammering hail in the shelter of the native trees!). We look forward to hearing back from Fernworth and how well their seeds and the plants they were given are growing.
Bronwyn and Chris
Posted: 25 October 2019