Heddon Bush School Learn About Native Plants – 17 June 2021
It was a great day hosting the whole school from New Entrants to Year 8 students, along with their enthusiastic teachers and parents. The school has been caring for many seedlings in their school nursery in readiness for planting out a native area in their school grounds. Today the students were learning more about native plants and how to identify them.
Out around the pond track Heddon Bush School were inspired, learning how a paddock can be transformed into a forest through restoration planting. The leaves of the plants growing were found and identified. Around the nursery (plant growing part of the Southland Community Nursery) the students went on a treasure hunt to match up a picture with the real plant, having to use their observation skills, and learning that most of the plants that are propagated and grown are colonising species. Learning about how a forest works and the process of succession extended on their new-found knowledge of plants. Planting colonising species to withstand the Southland climatic conditions was knowledge extended into initial planning for their upcoming term 3 planting. The importance of eco-sourcing of Southland natives and learning about the layers of a forest were also part of the day.
After lunch, a journey back in time to Gondwanaland and pre-human NZ and Southland highlighted the significance of our fauna and flora and why restoration is important. Listing all the Southland places with “bush” in the name was an interesting activity getting the students thinking about the stories of these places. With all this knowledge of plant and their identification the students were then able to easily name the previously unnamed NZ native plant species that they are growing and had bought to us for identification! Tumeke! We look forward to seeing their school restoration project thrive.
Bronwyn and Chris
Posted: 21 June 2021