Schoolkids on course for green future
‘‘We were excited to see the feeders in place.’’
A developing ‘‘green’’ partnership between Silverstream primary school pupils and the Manor Park Golf Sanctuary was celebrated with a recent on-course visit.
A highlight for the children was being able to see their own environmental work in action.
Seventeen Year 5 and 6 children from the school’s Green Streamers group were at the Manor Park course early on the morning of October 31.
In term three, the volunteer students made a number of bird feeders which were gifted to the Lower Hutt golf club.
‘‘The feeders will further help us to sustain our native bird life in the winter and spring months,’’ Manor Park management committee member Penny Birchall said.
‘‘The students, parents and teachers came outside of school hours, which shows their enthusiasm for what they are doing.
‘‘They were able to see the bird feeders in the trees on the Curtis Flack Memorial Wetland.
‘‘Curtis was a greenkeeper who helped developed this wetland and who passed away last year not long after completing the project,’’ Birchall said.
Silverstream teacher Jill Peauafi said the Manor Park visit was rewarding for the children.
‘‘We were excited to see the feeders in place and we are looking to have an ongoing relationship with them.
‘‘Right now we are making more for the sanctuary. We had fun gathering pine cones there, too.’’
The Green Streamers group, which meets after school on Tuesdays, has been organised at the school for five years and is part of its work towards earning Enviroschools bronze status.
‘‘We work with the Enviroschools principles of sustainable communities,’’ Peauafi said.
‘‘In term three we were gifted a bee hotel with 90 leafcutter bees and a bumble bee nesting box, which we have in our courtyard.’’
Other projects are encouraging classes to compost fruit waste from which worm tea is harvested, and the tending and planting of garden beds, Peauafi said.
Last term the Green Streamers group went on a full-day ‘‘World of Waste’’ trip, visiting the Silverstream landfill, Seaview Recycling plant and Earthworks workshop in Wingate and Dowse Museum.
Following its centenary in 2014, the Manor Park Golf sanctuary embarked on an environmental project to both build on what natural assets it already had and also safeguard its future.
Located in bushland alongside the Hutt River, the course is home to a wide variety of birds, including a pair of New Zealand falcons/ ka¯rearea.
The Manor Park Golf Sanctuary also has a working relationship with Forest & Bird, which over the last two years has planted on the property to create a corridor for migrating birds.
It has also joined Audubon International, a not-for-profit New York organisation which runs programmes to help landowners preserve and enhance the environmental quality of their property.