This term in Tūrangawaewae we have been learning about how food waste breaks down and how worms work to turn our scraps into soil! We have been thinking about how we can act as kaitiaki of our environment by putting our rubbish in the right place; we’ve learned recently that if we drop rubbish in the wrong place at school, it can make its way into our local awa | river - fish and water life don’t like this! In Tūrangawaewae we have also started composting the food scraps from our lunchboxes to create nutrient rich soil for our new māra | garden. 

Last week we had the opportunity to visit Wastewise. It was a very informative morning thanks to our knowledgeable facilitators, Susannah and Stacey. We used magnifying glasses to investigate the worms - they were very happy in their worm farm and we even spotted tiny worm eggs among the compost! Did you know one little worm egg can hatch up to 24 baby worms? When we held the worms, Susannah showed us how to first spray our hands with cool water so that our warm skin didn’t burn them.

We had a lot of fun sorting the rubbish, recycling and food waste into different bins and then we got competitive with a “rubbish relay”! We got to test out a cool bicycle that pumped water as we pedaled and then finished our morning with a bus tour through the Waitakere Resource Recovery Park where diggers and trucks were working hard tipping, moving and sorting Auckland’s rubbish. 

We had a memorable and very informative morning at Wastewise!

by Lis Gordon