Room5ians have expressed an interest in sustainable farming, growing 'clean, green' food and raising free range organic chickens for eggs.
If we can plan and implement a realistic programme for developing an area of the school as an organic, sustainable "farmlet", and we are prepared to stick with it and follow it through, we have permission to do so.
Please state all the positives, potential barriers, solutions and innovative ideas you have.
Why should we? How can we? Do you want to? What will we do to make it happen?
Add as much information here as possible and make posts on your own blogs to add further info. If we really want to we can make this happen.
Go for it!
Enviroschools philosophy is:
"Imagine...a generation of innovative and motivated young people, who instinctively think and act sustainably.
Enviroschools is working towards this vision through a whole school approach to environmental education. Students develop skills, understanding, knowledge and confidence through planning, designing and creating a sustainable school. Action projects undertaken by enviroschools have both environmental and educational outcomes that benefit the school and the wider community."
Enviroschools is working towards this vision through a whole school approach to environmental education. Students develop skills, understanding, knowledge and confidence through planning, designing and creating a sustainable school. Action projects undertaken by enviroschools have both environmental and educational outcomes that benefit the school and the wider community."
21 comments:
Do you think we should look at organicaly breed chicken meat while we're at it? Mr Woody could have a supply of non-tortured organic chicken sandwhiches for lunch! How many would be against it (the poor chickens!), how many for it? Maybe we should run a few poles about some of the issues this concept brings up.
any ideas? Whadayathink?
Great post Mr A - thanks for getting the ball rolling.
I suspect the kids won't want to eat the chooks, but they will love collecting eggs from them.
Well not every one likes to plant gardens, or feed chickens so we could....
Some people could...
Plant plants
Examine them as they grow
Make a blog on our gardens or and diary entries every week about the garden
Feed chickeys
make pens for the chickens
Be incharge of markiting our veges and our eggs
Well there are some ideas.
Bye, snowy!!!!
opps, i mean chickens not chickeys!!!
wow i dont know if some people will be able to do this cause as this saying goes "you can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?"
i think it may be hard for some people but fun for some (i think its fun)like i love this sort of stuff but (example)mr.woodcock may not be happy as happy about it as we are.
so if you accidently chose a person who does not like gardening and such, well mabye they will end up wrecking the "plan" that we sort of have, so it will wreck it for us all, even for that person, because then some people may get angry and rub it in even though it is partly there fault, so mabye we should make sure everyone likes the idea first???
ashymashy=)
THat is a good thought, but like snowys post, there can be different jobs to do, which cold also in cluding marketing the products as well, so it could be interesting for mostly every one. Maybe in term 3 we could start it! THe whol;le drowing thing can be a who;le topic, as you can do it for different subjects:
Math: Estimating plant growth, how much they can sell for etc.
Reading: Read stuff to do with sustainible gardening and do actiities for it.
Science: Fair testing
Writing: Diary/Blog entry's of how the growing is going
Economics: Prices of the food.
Us students could bring crop/ food to school for us to plant. But we should actually really do it!!!!
WE could also learn about Caring for Nature and the chickies!
PLEASE CAN WE DO IT!!!!!
Solutions to the problems:
Money: We could get money by selling stuff that we don't need from home or we could sell other random stuff. If the plants do grow and the chickens lay eggs we could sell them...?
Space: We could use the unused greenhouse(plants).
We could build a pen for the chickens, or we could use the big rat cage when the rats pass away...?
Time: We could all take turns looking after the chicken/s and plants.
Premission: We could write a really convincing letter to Mr.Woody.
First up I would like to welcome Mr A to the blogging world!!!
Now to serious business.
I think that we should have a Sustainable Chicken Farm. But We need to consider these factors.
Permission- We've already got permission from Mr Woody and Mr Abrahams. Now someone needs to write a proposal to Ms Barham, Mr Stevens, Whaea Ti Kiri and Mr Dyer.
It has to be signed.
Money- I think we all need to pitch in. How about saying all of us donates small as 1 dollar towards the wood for the pens and food and watering costs. We might need to fundraise.
Timing- With all that's going on I think it will be hard to manage with all the happenings in class.
We need to organise and time manage.
Self Wise.
What will people do-
I think we should do what Snowy said how everyone has a part. I think that someone should be in charge of the chickens with Mr Woody.
We can do blog posts on how things are going updates, and other stuff.
We can learn more about the science of plants, growing and learn alternatives.
Consult Professionals for indoor growing (Hydroponics)
We can also learn about how things affect society (economic wise)
I think that this will be a great opportunity for us.
Now this is what you call G.A.T.E learning.
HamilTRON
THe rat cage wouldnt be big enough at all! we want our chicks to be free range!
Mrs Barham has all ready said yes "Yay!!" but I think we should ask a few more people. WE need to remind Mr woody that we actually should do this, other wise we might forget/ pass over the idea.
Another idea that people could take part in could be the building of chicken enclousure! WE could learn how to buil and use right measurements! Im sure people in our class could sponsor stuff, it could be money, produce, seeds, or even wood! they wouldnt have to of course. We should have a vote and big class discusion about it, and visit the (empty) green house and see if it is suitable.
Mr woody, you should put up a poll of, "Who thinks the sustainible garden is a good idea", and that way we can tally up the votes and decide whether to do it or not!
Hopefully we can!!
YES, YES, YES.
I think it is a very good idea because it is good for the enviroment.
We will learn skills that we usually wouldn't have.e.g. How to plant plants and we would learn how to take care of chickens.
I agree Hamiltron money would be a problem but yes we could do some fundraising.
I have to say-that around 80% OF THE WORLD'S CHICKENS ARE BATTERY FARMED! This is incredible, but bad. The people need to do something about it. If you want more info, go to: http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other5330.html
About the organic school thing - I would like to say that it is a really good idea. However, we need to overcome a few problems.
1) A mini organic farm is good, but where could we grow it? In the school greenhouse?
2) Would Mrs Barham give us permission?
3) After our mini organic farm is done, people might be stupid and wreck it!
Time for some good news: in the year 2012, the battery cage size will each be increased to 600cm squared for EACH CHICKEN!
yeh it would be really cool and interesting to study and we would learn home skills!!!. people have already covered everything else so yeh...... if all our rats die:-( can we please get new rats? ok, bye
thanks
bye
:-)
Why should we? We should do it because we have to leave the world beautiful and healthy so that the later generations have the neccasities that we take for granted every day. For example water such a precious resource and so important for us. Yet we see so many companies whom own factories which pollute the water so much. I mean come on don't they care about tommorow's people your children and thier children after them don't you see how much damage it will do in the coming years as everything run out and the simplest things become precious humanity will posibbly cease to exist.
How can we? We can do it by using less electricity,by not going and buying things that you don't need, by trying to use your car less and less. You see these little changes will help those people of the future and they would be glad to have us as thier ancestors.
and of course I want to.
As mr woody told us about it today whoopsy I wrote about our envoirement as a whole sorry;)
The thing is that it take quite awhile for the plants to grow.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves when we think about selling them.
How much do chickens cost?
Some people might not have anything to chip in and it cost a lot of money to buy the; food for the chickens, plants, bark (or whatever we end up using to keep the weeds off), soil, and a pen for the chickens.
How says no one is going to smash up the plants/chickens when we are not there?
In the term holidays what do we do????
Personally I'm all for it!
I think it is a great idea, only, I think it will one of those time where we go crazy about but actually do anything about it.
All air and no substance!
I am against eating the chickens for brekkie!
Intelligent comments! Just realised I've learned your real names, but now I've got to learn your blogger names as well!! Arhhh!!!
Some of the questions I have are:
1. After setup, how much time and effort will be required to maintain whatever gets created?
2. How much time and effort are the awesome room5ians prepared to commit to?
3. Will the experience continue be educational the entire time?
4. What happens when y'all get old n grumpy and go to high school? - Do the next batch of ankle biters get forced to inherit the gardens, or do they get a choice?
What do you think of these questions, and how do you think we can find the answers?
P.S. Wasn't really serious about eating the chooks, but maybe we could eat the rats!!
THats even more horibble Mr A!!!
For you quesrions:
1: im not really sure, different plants take longer to grow than others, adn i dont really know that much about chickens!
2: Lots for me, but Im not sure if every one would.
3. Hopefully it will be, as if the plants pop up at diferent imes, we can maybe learn how to cook them/ sell them, and then another vege might grow! and we could do something with that.
4. Either the nezt Gate class mr Woody has, or the enviro agents could look afer it??
An idea I just had could be not to sell them, but make a big Hangi full of our veges, we could get help from rm 1 and 2, and learn, and experience Hangi's!
Wow! I love this idea! I could definitely see my class (or next year's students) doing this. You could raise the crops and donate the food to the poor (not sure if you have such a thing in New Zealand) or soup kitchen. What a great community service idea. I have incubated and hatched chicken eggs before. Another wonderful learning opportunity. Downside would be who would take care of the chickens and crops on the weekends?
Yes!!! I love Mr Teehan's idea! Maybe, half the fruit & veges we grow we could sell, and the other half we could donate to the poor!
Also, I had another idea that we could give the produce to food tech so that the school doesn't have to pay. (Would food tech use it though?)
I like rosiegal's idea!! Hangitastic!
Mr Woody, do you come in on the weekends to feed the rats? Maybe you could do the same for the chickens? Or maybe you could bring the chickens home with you? Hmmmm...
i am available on weekends to keep an eye on the chickens and to water gardens :-)
someone needs to collate a list of all the issues that need solving so we can tick them off once we have found a solution.
who has posted organic, sustainable chicken garden blog posts on their own blogs? alert us so we can have a look...
[whoops - i've reverted to non-capitalisation - sorry]
I am always looking for learning opportunites and ways to connect two cultures. If your class thinks we can share our experiences, photos, video, (and yes even possibly skyping), I would definitely consider taking on the same project at my school. I will ask the class tomorrow (I can still work with them even though they move on to the next year and new teachers). If they agree and you and your students think we could participate in a cooperative exchange, I think this experience would be very unique! Let me know what you think!
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