Vegetables and worms at Kawerau Putauaki School
11 September 2017
KAWERAU Putauaki School students learnt about sustainability last week, to maintain their brand-new vegetable garden and worm farm.
The school’s new projects were donated by Bunnings Warehouse and installed by a team of Whakatane representatives on Thursday.
Teacher Verbena McCauley-Walker said the students were learning about sustainability in the classroom so the Bunning’s project was welcomed by the school.
The garden and worm farm were projects the students could look after all year long, she said.
Ms McCauley-Walker said the students’ learning would link to looking after the environment and benefit their health.
“It’s also going to link into their life skills. It comes down to the hands-on learning and to see their knowledge grow.
“It teaches the students to give back and that food doesn’t grow at New World.”
At the school on Thursday, four Bunnings representatives from Whakatane installed the vegetable garden and set up the worm farm with the 50 middle school students.
The students helped build the garden, situated on a grass patch outside their classrooms.
They then learnt about worm farms and helped set that up.
Ms McCauley-Walker said the knowledge the students learnt at school would be transferred to their whanau and community.
Principal Rachel Chater said Bunnings had been amazing to the school, having installed a strawberry patch last year.
Not only did this project teach the children about sustainability, Ms Chater said it taught them about giving back to the community and “you can’t just get”.
Ms McCauley-Walker said the students would care for the vegetable garden this term, until the food was ready to harvest.
The students would celebrate with their whanau by hosting and cooking a stir-fry meal at the end of the term.
ASSEMBLE: Nikora Broughton-Peri, Zantarus Rua, Lincoln Whareaorere and Tina Boreham assemble the worm farm. D5724-39 
INSTALL: Kawerau Putauaki School students learn about building a vegetable garden. D5724-47 
GARDEN: Bunnings Warehouse Whakatane team member Jason Gardiner digs holes to install the vegetable garden at Kawerau Putauaki School. D5724-05zx