Friday 3 March 2017

“Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au - our visit to the River Talks

The theme for our year 9's was sustainability which we as a school, we had identified a number of different areas in the community that were issues.  One of the issues raised was how to protect and sustain our waterways.  The Omaru Creek runs through Glen Innes and is polluted.

Mad Ave productions invited our students this week to attend 'The River Talks'.  The production was run over two days which allows us to take some of the classes to the production over the two days, without disrupting subject teachers timetables which I was conscious of, even though it had been planned from last year. 

On our first day, we took 3 year 9 classes and although we were only able to see half of the production, they gained some insight into why and how the river became polluted.  They were told how 100 years ago, the river was a means of collecting food for families and kids like them, could swim safely in the river.

We were lucky enough to be joined by the other schools in the cluster.

On the second day, we took the remaining 3 year 9 classes and were able to see the entire production from beginning to end.  The students enjoyed seeing lots of different points of view about the river and one of the exhibits showed how water was collected and diluted but showed an excess amount of pollution and poison which surprised many of our kids.  A number of students wanted to know if they could choose the river as their topic for their sustainability projects!  All in all, the days were valuable in showing real life issues to relate to what they were learning about.

A few of our students holding up signs - future social activists maybe?


Always time for a selfie!


The kids were a little freaked out by this scene!


Our kids looking over the tunnel entrance where polluted water travels down from the businesses in St Johns to Glen Innes.

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