Community Climate Action Plan of Ngatimoti School
Creating a healthy, peaceful and sustainable world through facilitating action-learning; where inter-generations of people work with and learn from nature -weaving in Māori perspectives, combining traditional wisdoms with new understandings. Importantly, our kaupapa reminds us to be in connection: to love, care for and respect ourselves, each other and our planet.
Who you are and site of action: Ngatimoti School is a state primary school in a village in the Motueka River Valley.
Goals of your climate action plan: Ngatimoti is an Enviroschool. The kaupapa of Enviroschools is: The Enviroschools kaupapa is creating a healthy, peaceful and sustainable world through facilitating action-learning; where inter-generations of people work with and learn from nature. It weaves in Māori perspectives, combining traditional wisdoms with new understandings. Importantly, our kaupapa reminds us to be in connection: to love, care for and respect ourselves, each other and our planet.
How you went about it: Ngatimoti is probably the oldest Enviroschool in the area, and has accrued commitment to its principles over 20 years from teachers, parents and children. It now serves as a leader in helping other schools develop as Enviroschools. There is a great deal of engagement with the children in developing foci, projects and so on. An early focus was the health of a stream in an adjacent property. This has extended to care of a nearby wetland, projects to enhance birdlife in the area, and the children’s practising the principles of organic gardening to grow their own food. The school runs Envirodays, where each teacher has a ‘station’ representing a particular issue or problem, and the children visit the stations, selecting an area to study more deeply. The children pay attention to their own behaviour in relation to resources and the environment, in terms of using energy, using plastic, wasting food and so on. The school pays attention to its own operations in terms of employing passive solar principles in new building and in heating the swimming pool, and no use of fossil fuels for space heating.
What you’ve accomplished so far. How long did this take? The school’s coverage of the ecological issues within its purview is very broad, and includes its own operations as well as educational and practical content in learning. The children appear to have assimilated ecological principles to the point where they seem ‘second nature.’ The health of the stream, which is measured regularly, has improved. This culture has been developing for 20 years.
Most children come by bus to school. Relatively few are driven by car. If teachers need to attend a conference in the nearest city, Nelson, they are encouraged to car pool.
Lessons learned, obstacles overcome: Because new children are constantly entering the school, lessons must be revisited to maintain the culture of the school. New staff are supported by old staff as they learn both principles and practice. The local government body, Tasman District Council, runs workshops for Enviroschools teachers.
Funding for materials is sometimes a problem. Tasman District Council also helps with this.
Certain aspects of projects require adult help, for example, keeping weeds down in newly planted areas. Working bees are run to fill this need.
Fitting the environmental programme, with visits to stream and wetland, and attention to the gardens, into a busy curriculum can be a challenge.
Contact details: [email protected]
Freja Broughton, 9 years old, and the ‘Bug Hotel’ at Ngatimoti School
Featured News
See all news >
Wednesday 08 February, 7pm
Degrowth scholar Anitra Nelson talking on Food, Housing, and Neighbourhood Self-Sufficiency
This webinar is sponsored by Degrowth Greens and shared by Our Climate Declaration. Join us...
Read more >
Human disruption risks biosphere collapse
20 January 2023
Given we’ve triggered multiple crises in the natural world it’s time to talk about overpopul...
Read more >
December 2022 Newsletter - Our Updated Climate Declaration
03 December 2022
Kia ora katoa! The year ends on a note of despair for which we have to thank the hijacking o...
Read more >

Can we regenerate nature by accelerating the circular economy? | Webinar Recording
30 November 2022
Who are businesses really responsible to? In our webinar for November 30, we joined Louise N...
Read more >

Herman Daly - A giant left us
04 November 2022
Click to read "Herman Daly - A giant left us" by Mathis Wackernagel from the Global Footprin...
Read more >

Complex conversations on complex questions webinar recording
02 November 2022
Our webinar for November 2 explained how the techniques of deliberative, as opposed to parti...
Read more >
September 2022 Newsletter - Thinking about the future
12 September 2022
As climate activists we are susceptible to despair, to the feeling that our actions are lead...
Read more >

Living Within Biophysical Limits: green growth versus degrowth webinar recording
10 August 2022
By Jonathan Boston, ONZM This webinar went to air on August 10, 2022.
Read more >