Watering Our Garden

Following Mondays planting, the Planet Savers took the opportunity to look at the new plants and provide some much needed TLC with the upcoming warmer weather!
The Planet Savers were thrilled to see all the new plants, even remincing on their first experiences with planting at Findon. One year five student remembered beginning the bush food garden in year 3 and was impressed to see how much it had developed.

Each student had a watering can or a bucket between two. As a team, we discussed how much water these new plants needed. A third of a bucket was a reasonable amount of water for each plant. The Planet Savers also discussed the impact of the recent hot days on the growth of the plants.

This session provided a great opportunity for reflection. Students were able to see the positive impacts of caring for plants over an extended period of time. The main concerns the Planet Savers raised for caring for these Indienous plants were eliminating any rubbish from the area and ensuring all new and existing plants were watered.

Planting Afternoon!

Three years ago Findon Primary School and La Trobe University started a Bush Food Garden  together at the primary school. Planted in the garden were indigenous plants. Many early years students use this space as a place to play and the vegetation has grown well.

On Monday the 3rd of November a group of students volunteered to tidy up and plant new plants in this garden. With the help of a Planet Saver leader the team of students planted over 50 plants. All weeds were removed, holes dug, plants watered and tree guard put up for the plants in danger of being stepped on. With leftover time, the team also spread new mulch over this area.

As most of the team were not a part of the Planet Savers group, a new interest was sparked and many children are now excited to help in upcoming planting projects around the school. As these plants are new, all team members expressed interest in checking on the garden throughout the term so the garden can have the best chance to flourish.

 As well as showing interest and care in planting and looking after the flora of the school, many children discussed making their own garden at home after learning how to plant. It was great to see the boys and girls working collaboratively and helping each other to use new tools. During the activity many students expressed how happy they were that they decided to attend school that day as many students were away due to Melbourne Cup weekend.

The children gained a valuable learning experience by enquiring about types of plants that like shade and those that like sun. They also used informal measurements of water to 'kick start' the growth of the newly planted. Many were surprised at how much water was required and were concerned it may be too much! Extending the sustainable program to children outside of the Planet Savers team has promoted caring for flora to the wider school.

Teacher Resources


La Trobe Wildlife Educational Experiences would like to provide teachers with resources to take in to their classroom.

In this post you will find a Water Invertebrates ID Sheet

 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_XBzqEjEV-U3diRGNla1ZmWDg/edit?usp=docs_home

Planet Savers 16th of October

 

With Term 4 underway the Findon Planet Savers have been brainstorming their goals and aims for achieving a sustainable school.
After a team of savers performed the energy saving light audit, the whole group decided to work on badges for the compost monitors in each classroom.

The team discussed a plan for their documentary and every member nominated themselves for a role.
The overall plot of the documentary is a superhero story, with a villian wasting energy, creating waste and being irresponsible in terms of sustainability. Below is a list of characters and roles in order to create the film:

1. Miss Planet Saver- the hero of the film
2. Enviro Dog- Miss Saver's trustworthy side-kick
3. Dr. Bolt- the villian
4. Rubbish Guy- Dr. Bolt's side-kick
5. Camera Man
6. x2 Script Writers
7. Location Set Up Team Member
8. x2 Flim editors and also filming 'extras'.

In total, there are 10 roles and it was decided that all students had the opportunity to be involved in the film if desired.

Filming will begin next week.

Planet Savers Light Audit

With the help of the school community, The Findon Planet Savers constructed a light audit. From the recent feedback in the teachers PD session there was a concern for existing lights to be gradually changed to energy saving lights. On Thursday, members of the FPS constructed a tally for three light types. "We have sooo many lights" Matthew (Gd. 5). Matthew highlighted that the lights were always on in the office area. The first two types of light were located in the office area and the third throughout the whole school. Their aim is to replace all lights in these areas so all needed to be counted. Below is a table of the number of lights to be replaced, as conducted by the FPS. Plans are underway to replace these lights now that the audit has been done. All students are excited to contribute to the schools decision making in saving energy.

Lights to be replaced are: Type 1-19, Type 2-24 and Type 3-19

Compost Campaign

After the brainstorm, the Findon Planet Savers decided that each classroom including the staff room needed a compost bin. The two major problem solving issues the FPS recognised is that the compost bins were not successful in previous trials because the bins had no lid. The second issue was that the bucket sizes needed to be a suitable, medium size for the classroom.


Sourcing the buckets proved to be easier than anticipated and came from a local pasta sauce factory, equipped with lids!




On Thursday, the FPS held a meeting to discuss the labels for the compost buckets and how to communicate the new program to the school. One student had the idea of constructing badges to create "Compost Monitors" for each classroom. With the badge making machine available the students began creating badges and decided the leaders would introduce the program at the Friday assembly.




The labels for the compost buckets were simple so that it was easy to read for all year levels. Signs were then created to show what could and could not go in the compost buckets.

Planet Saver Brainstorms!

The Findon Planets Savers (FPS) have been working towards becoming student-centered and weekly programs run, based on their ideas in collaboration with the teachers feedback from the PD. On Thursday the 21st of August the FPS came together to brainstorm their ideas for future projects continuing in to term 4.

Below are the outcomes of the student collaboration session done today...

All students passionately discussed creating a Documentary of their journey in becoming a sustainable school. You can see their focus will be on Waste, Water, Biodiversity and Energy. It was discussed that each member of FPS is to be involved, taking on different roles. These roles included an editor, script writer(s), camera operations and interviewers.

Here you can see the students are concerned about a Compost and Waste campaign to a whole school approach. As part of preparing for a waste audit they decided signs to save water and paper were needed throughout the school to prompt users. Badges were thought of to give to monitors in the classrooms, which would be made by the FPS.

 For their Energy Campaign, the theme of constructing signs was deemed important to be consistent with the waste campaign. The idea of presentations and videos at assembly was discussed that included themes such as solar power, having competitions on energy saving and showing people how much energy they actually use in daily tasks.


















Further and NEW developments for Term 4

Below, the students discussed the existing Butterfly Garden. They were enthusiastic about having monitors watering the plants every week using recycled water and planning how, when and who will keep developing this wonderful garden. Also below is the year 2/3 Bushfood Garden that needs to be maintained and a new garden outside the 2/3 classrooms that will be a new development. Their ideas consisted of a design, plant selection, weed management and school permissions.