MULBERRY GROVE SCHOOL
AOTEA GREAT BARRIER ISLAND
KAITIAKITANGA ~ ENVIROSCHOOLS
Mulberry Grove School is proud to be an Enviroschool. We are working towards achieving our Green-Gold accreditation. The children participate in a number of environmental initiatives as part of being an Enviroschool. These include gardening, rat trapping, the little blue penguin project, recycling, composting & a community food pantry. The children have participated in the Toitu te Ngahere: Art in Schools for Forest Health with Auckland University. We have large solar panels providing the school with much of its power and we catch rain water into our tanks, all part of living completely off-grid on a remote island. We integrate an environmental focus into many areas of our curriculum, teaching food resilience, kaitiatitanga, caring for our local environment, forests & waterways and the animals and creatures we share our home with.
What are Enviroschools?
Enviroschools are schools and early childhood centres who commit to a long-term sustainability journey, where tamariki/students connect with and explore the environment, then plan, design and take action in their local places in collaboration with their communities. The Enviroschools kaupapa is about creating a healthy, peaceful, sustainable world through learning and taking action together.
Enviroschools is a learning framework
Enviroschools is a national programme run by the Toimata Foundation based in Hamilton. It offers a rich learning framework for action to follow embedded with Māori perspectives.
The framework process can be used to help create a sustainability vision for the Enviroschool, to plan and take social and environmental actions, to collaborate on projects and to help integrate all aspects of an Enviroschool.
Enviroschools undertake their own pathway to be more sustainable with measurable signposts, recognised as Bronze, Silver and Green-Gold.
Resources and facilitation provided to support each Enviroschool are funded by Tasman District Council with support from the Toimata Foundation.
The bigger picture
The overall aim of the Enviroschools Programme is to have generations of empowered citizens who think and act sustainably now and in the future.
The Enviroschools Programme encourages learning for purposeful actions that care for people and the environment. The process sets up students to be empowered as knowledgeable and inclusive leaders. When they are fully engaged in their learning and actions they easily transfer their passion to the wider community in a ripple effect.