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What is happening at the moment with food scraps and other green waste?

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What is happening at the moment with food scraps and other green waste?

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On a map of the school note any places where there are sources of food waste or other green (grass, tree, bush clippings) or brown waste (as in leaves / paper / cardboard / rooted straw etc.)

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Ask the caretaker, principal, ag / hort teacher, the longest serving teacher in the school.

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Ask the caretaker, principal, ag / hort teacher, the longest serving teacher in the school.

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What has happened in the past re food scraps?

Has there ever been a compost?

Who looked after and what was the purpose?

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Use the Enviroschools Whole School Approach to make your composts sustainable and think about being part of a sustainable community.

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Use the Enviroschools Whole School Approach to make your composts sustainable and think about being part of a sustainable community.

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Some prompting questions when using the whole school approach:

People - who can we learn from - who can be involved - who is going to keep it going - how can we help our community

Programmes - how are we going to learn about this - how can we engage more people to learn with us - how can we learn in, about and take action - what cultural perspectives would add to our learning

Places - where is the best place to site our compost - where are we going to keep out tools - where will we keep our ingredients

Practices - how are we going to make compost and keep it going

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Conduct a 1 day waste audit to see what food waste is present.

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Conduct a 1 day waste audit to see what food waste is present.

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Contact you local Enviroschools facilitator or Waste education facilitator through the local council for a process and support to do.

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An engaging look into the basics of composting. The presenter speaks quite fast so it's a good idea to revisit several times.

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Look at previous schools magazines or booklets etc for any past activity from Envirogroups.

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Look at previous schools magazines or booklets etc for any past activity from Envirogroups.

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Para Kore delivers a te ao Māori based, zero waste education programme called Oranga Taiao. This programme aims to design out waste and strengthen connection to Papatūānuku and Ranginui.

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Welcome to our Oranga Taiao online learning. Here you can experience some of our wānanga in your own time and at your own pace. Gather your whānau around and do it together.

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Here is a taster of the incredible Garden to Table soil resource. Please note if you are a Garden to Table school you will be able to head to the member website to download the full resource.

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Te Kauwhata School Community Compost hub

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Te Kauwhata School Community Compost hub

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This is the story of a project undertaken by Para Kore, in collaboration with Te Kauwhata Primary School, the CarbonCycle company, and funded by the Waikato District Council to establish the first community compost hub in the district. Included NZAEE webinar

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This article was written by Paul Murray, Kaiārahi with Para Kore Marae Incorporated.

Re-published with permission from Te Whakatika: The Aotearoa New Zealand Professional Practice Journal for Outdoor and Environmental Learning, Issue 42 Autumn 2024 (in press).

Te Kauwhata Community Compost Hub

This is the story of a project undertaken by Para Kore, in collaboration with Te Kauwhata Primary School, the CarbonCycle company, and funded by the Waikato District Council to establish the first community compost hub in the district.

"The process has linked to our inquiry topics as we look at how we can look after our environment in our local histories curriculum."

- Alice Kapoor, Enviroschools Lead Teacher, Te Kauwhata Primary

In a world fraught with environmental challenges, social inequalities, and food insecurity, imagine a scene where communities thrive with healthy, equitable, nutritious kai borne out of localised solutions.

Imagine hapū, iwi, schools, early childhood centres, community groups, local councils and businesses all collaborating to divert organic waste from landfill, reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and while creating a plentitude of nutrient dense soil - soil full of microbial life, at scale - furnishing local food growing schemes and producing an abundance of kai for the community.

This is not just a pipe dream but a tangible reality already in progress through the creation of community compost hubs.

At its core, the hot compost hub embodies the convergence of science, environmental education, Mātauranga Māori, community resilience, and sustainable food practices.

It serves as a platform for immersive learning, where soil science comes to life, revealing the intricate web of living systems that make life - and food - possible for us. It reminds us of our place within the interconnected web of life, that the health of any one system is entirely dependent on the health and wellbeing of all others.

The video below is a recording of Paul Murray, Te Kauwhata Primary School teacher Alice Kapoor and students Pearl and George sharing their story and learning from the project. Watch now(55 minutes) or continue reading the full article below.

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Background: Oranga Taiao, Oranga Marae, Oranga Whānau

Para Kore Marae Incorporated is a kaupapa Māori, not-for-profit sustainability education organisation whose work contributes to building soil and kai sovereignty, which in turn supports climate justice and action. The mission of Para Kore is to educate and advocate from a Māori worldview to strengthen connection to Ranginui and Papatūānuku. Their programmes support marae, whānau, hapū, iwi, learning and education centres, and a wide array of community groups and entities to design out and reduce waste.

Te Kauwhata Primary School is located in the very centre of the northern Waikato town its name shares. The school has been on its own enviro journey for well over a decade and has already experienced the perks of interacting and working collaboratively with its community. The school gardens, a centre of learning, have also been a centre of income over the years through the carefully nurtured relationships with local businesses by way of selling their produce and by raising crops specifically as fundraisers. Rhonda Irvine, now retired, was the green-thumbed, enviro-enthusing teacher-aide whose classroom was ever and only the garden, through which all twelve classes were circulated for practical, hands-on learning.

"Those first kids had so much pride in the gardens and for themselves because they had a hand in building them and then they became our future garden leaders, teaching others all they had learnt, from seed saving to plate."
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- Rhonda Irvine, Community Gardener, Compost Hub Manager

Post retirement, Rhonda now leads the newly established Te Kauwhata Community Gardens located right across the road from Te Kauwhata Primary School on land provisioned by the Waikato District Council. Just a few doors down, is one of several early childhood centres in the town, Te Kauwhata Childcare & Learning Centre. Not far up the road is Te Kauwhata College.
The Problem
Food waste going into landfill is a big problem for a number of reasons: Greenhouse gas emissions, resource waste, landfill space, economic costs, food (in)security, food equity, the impact on natural systems and biodiversity to name a few.

Schools on the Ka Ora, Ka Ako | Healthy School Lunches Programme often face increased volumes of food waste going to landfill, and schools, like marae, community centres, and early childhood centres, do not qualify for kerbside food scrap collections that run in our bigger centres. Rural communities know about feeding their food scraps to pigs and chooks, but what about everyone else, like in Te Kauwhata, for example?
The Solution
The idea of a Community Compost Hub is to link up as many community entities as possible via a shared and collaborative resource that benefits everyone - a hot compost unit. Set up one of CarbonCycle's vermin-proof, hot composting units central to a marae, a community centre, a high school, some primary schools, early childhood centres, or any other community entities, and you have the beginnings of a community compost hub. Note: Everyone would ideally be located within range of a food-scraps-carrying cargo bike.

Image L to R: Alice Kapoor (Lead Enviro Teacher, Te Kauwhata Primary School (behind student)), Pam Murtagh (Matawhaanui Trust), Marlene Raumati (Waikato District Councillor), Tania Nepe (Kaiako, Te Kauwhata Primary) and Te Kauwhata composting kids.

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The CarbonCycle Company has set up 70 community oriented compost hubs in Aotearoa New Zealand, nine of which are situated in schools as community hubs, with a further 60 schools having CarbonCycle systems that are used for education and food growing in the school. The inventor of this particular model of hot composting, the CarbonCycle composter, sums it up with this statement:

"Eliminate food miles, waste miles and compost miles. Good for the atmosphere, good for the planet, good for the people."
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- Richard Wallis, Inventor, CarbonCycle Composter

Why throw away your best resource for growing more food? Why drive it away somewhere else when it can be used to rebuild soil to grow more food right where you are. Doesn't that make sense?

The connections to environmental learning are clear. Composting leads to climate change actions, reducing emissions, waste minimisation, ecosystem support, and landscape restoration.

Education at the Community Level

Te Kauwhata Primary School became the host for a new CarbonCycle hot composting system funded by the Waikato District Council with the aim that the nearby college, other neighbouring schools and early childhood centres will also contribute. As part of the proposal, the project budgeted for quarterly wānanga sessions at the compost for the first full year cycle of the compost making process. The wānanga are offered to all stakeholders and participants in the project.

"Our success was simple from new entrants to the seniors. They liked doing it, it was outside the classroom, the tasks were simple: digging, planting seeds, watering, weeding, and chatting about gardening. On wet days, it was researching topics they chose; bee keeping, watering systems, water sources, and fertilisers to use." - Rhonda Irvine

Image: Compost manager Rhonda Irvine (far right)

However, the true winning factor in the ongoing success of maintaining a community compost hub, is having a compost manager - someone to oversee and coordinate the maintenance of the hot compost system lest it become a dumping ground.

The Para Kore project proposal also included the provision to employ a compost manager two hours per week for the first year, including multiple days of paid training with the CarbonCycle compost experts on site.

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The goal of setting up a community compost hub is that the knowledge, skills and ownership of the community composting system is fully handed over to the community. The job of Para Kore is to support the establishment of the hub, but the true success of the project is seeing the learning, the understanding, and the actions of running a community compost taken over by the community.

"The compost hub wouldn't be possible without Rhonda. We need heaps of Rhondas. I believe they are already in every community. Imagine collaborative funding for roles like this everywhere."

- Ngakau Harris-Peke, kaiārahi Para Kore (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tamaterā, me Ngāti Hauā)

The idea of everyone being involved is fully embraced by Te Kauwhata Primary. The tamariki have been involved in every stage of this project, not only hands on, but hands deep in compost. Under the expert facilitation of the CarbonCycle crew, not a moment was lost to learning. The building of the compost structure itself and the establishment of the first compost box were opportunities to learn about microbiology, soil life, and the experiences of building and establishing effective compost systems.

Image: Tim Bowater (The CarbonCycle Company) with students from Te Kauwhata Primary learning about the soil food web.

At the next wānanga, the first turning of the compost, we learned more about the soil food web, the soil sponge, and healthy soil indicators. This is science in real life. Science in our hands, in our senses, in our physical memory banks. The smells and feels of healthy soil. The soil that grows our kai. The science of how to feed ourselves.

Here, the cycles of nature are not just studied but are actively participated in, as food waste is transformed into fertile soil in front of our very eyes, nourishing community gardens and closing the loop of consumption.

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"Overall the kids participate because they can see the end result of zero food waste from the school and we have talked about the benefits of compost going back into the school gardens."
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- Rhonda Irvine, Compost Manager

Mātauranga Māori clearly articulates the inseparable connection we as people have to the whenua, the land, to Papatūānuku. We whakapapa to the land. We come from and return to the land. But in our living years, the land also grows the food that sustains our bodies. If we feed and nurture the land, the land feeds and nurtures us. The health of the soil is the health of our food which is the health of us. We are inseparable.

Composting our food waste honours the taonga we have taken and used, in this case, the nutrients from the soil, the plants, and the animals that fed our bodies, the leftovers of which, the 'scraps', ultimately become nutrients in return to regenerate the soil. This is an act of giving back and of keeping the story going, full circle.

"I don't know if they understand how huge of a project this is, and how big this step is to normalise this kaupapa. What they've done is planted a seed for the tauira and this is going to continue growing."

- Ngakau Harris-Peke, kaiārahi Para Kore (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tamaterā, me Ngāti Hauā)

As part of Māoritanga, respecting the sources of our provision, acknowledging our older tuakana siblings of the natural world, those aspects of the living world that were here before us, will be here after us, and which are providing for us and making all this possible - this is our motivation to take care of the source, to ensure the legacy of the abundance we have received from our tūpuna, is also there for our mokopuna and their mokopuna. Composting is another way of being a good ancestor.
"Riro taonga mai, hoki taonga atu." We receive valuable resources from Papatūānuku, we return valuable resources to her. -Tuaiwa Rickard, (Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Toa, Tainui, Taranaki)
The scene is already looking more hopeful. Children are looking after the soil, watching it grow kai. We are driving less, buying less, and sharing more. We can all experience the abundance that local food growing projects offer. We have less waste and are making less of a mess. We're learning to live in relationship with the natural world around us, te taiao.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Paul Murray from Para Kore for sharing this inspiring story, along with his colleagues, kaiako and ākonga from Te Kauwhata Primary School, compost manager Rhonda Irvine and the wider community.

This project was made possible with funding from the Waikato District Council and project support from the CarbonCycle Company.

All images taken by Paul Murray and shared with permission.

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Article main image caption:
Back row, L to R) Paul Murray (Para Kore), Richard Wallis (Inventor of CarbonCycle Hot Composters) Rhonda Irvine (Compost Hub Manager), Tania Nepe (Kaiako, Te Kauwhata Primary) , Russel Watson (Caretaker, Te Kauwhata Primary), Pam Murtagh (Matawhaanui Trust), Tim Bowater (CarbonCycle Company), Alice Kapoor (Lead Enviro Teacher, Te Kauwhata Primary, and the wonderful Te Kauwhata Primary kids.

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Te Kauwhata Community Compost Hub | by NZAEE

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Para Kore support primary school ākonga in the Waikato to establish this successful example of community collaboration and education. Gain access free today.

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Click to see the process Rohan from Garden to Table went through with her class of 6-8 year olds.

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Rotted hay - peastraw - cardboard from businesses - coffee grounds from a cafe or business

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Lesson plans include:

Composting and soil science lesson plan

Compost in a jar worksheet

FBI documents

Soil chemistry worksheet

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Te Kura o Papatuanuku Wairarapa Earth School

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What is Project-Based Learning?

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying.

PBL could be the key to engagement. This is the same as 'intrinsic motivation' that Maria Montessori refers to when students are offered meaningful elements of choice they are more likely to be motivated. Montessori advocates relevant real world content, student choice, student voice, self management, opportunities for collaboration, peer review and discussion and challenge at the correct level (Goldilocks observation). Montessori was the first to advocate this type of real world project learning.

Te Kete Ipurangi puts PBL within its ' enabling e-learning' advice for teachers. We would argue that PBL is not confined to e-learning but can and should be practical hands-on learning that combines building a three-dimensional product, field trips, collaboration with industry and expert mentors.

It should span multiple subjects and curricular elements. Why can't students choose to dramatise the Krebs cycle in a short play or use mud and straw models to explore green building technologies?

PBL involves students solving real problems for an actual public audience, expert mentor or client. It allows students to find their own way to reach a set of learning goals and potentially continue on in the learning journey. Students research, innovate, design, gather data, present and review their work and build up to a public finale where final products are presented in a public event.

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Teacher Resources - Te Kura o Papatuanuku Wairarapa Earth School

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Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying. PBL could be the key to engagement.

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The tamariki at Holy Cross School recently got creative with their yoghurt making by using their thriving compost pile to keep the yoghurt cosy overnight while the bacteria did their magic.

Making yoghurt is a simple process but requires it to be kept at a constant temperature overnight. Instead of using a yoghurt maker the gardeners at Holy Cross School made sure their compost was nice and warm by adding fresh grass clippings and then buried the yoghurt mixture (sealed and wrapped) in it overnight.

The next day they checked the compost temperature (a cosy 50C) and dug out the yoghurt to be chilled and served with the delicious Ethiopian curry the kitchen team had prepared. What an inventive way to prepare yoghurt and learn about composting at the same time!

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Contact local arborists and let them know you are keen for a drop off if they ever have a spare load at the end of the day.

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Enviroschools Theme Area - Living Landscapes pg55 56 Whenua

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Whenua is the land that nourishes life. Te Ao Māori perspective.

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Whenua is the land that nourishes life. Te Ao Māori perspective.

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Learning about matauranga Māori in relation to the land - the whenua - the importance of the whenua.

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Taking action around organic matter in our waste. Reefton Area School

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Taking action around organic matter in our waste. Reefton Area School

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Problem Solving using the Action Learning cycle for a rat roblem in the compost.

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Problem Solving using the Action Learning cycle for a rat roblem in the compost.

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Enviroschools is an overarching culture of Tatuanui School in rural Waikato, woven into whole school life including the strategic plan. The school values reflect this in Caring, Attitude, Responsible, Enviro-kid - we care!

It started with a problem: rodents were nesting in the school recycling area. After exploring alternatives, they decided a grant (fund administered by Waikato Regional Council for Enviroschools within the region) would help them finance compost and wormery equipment they had investigated and decided would help keep rodents out.

They worked along-side their Enviroschools facilitator Ruairi, using the Action Learning Cycle to ensure they were meeting the criteria. The fund application was successful! !! Students ordered two tumblers and two Hungry Bin worm farms.

When the equipment arrived, the tamariki were excited to get stuck in and took the lead. The seniors did a great job of putting the compost tumbler and worm farm bins together.

As part of "we care" duties, one group does worms, one does compost. They have built an understanding ratio of greens and browns, wet and dry. They had an idea to do comparison with the systems, but life happened. The tumbler worm population was more temperamental than the old bath system so there were a few problems with attrition. They had kept the old baths though. The old system can cope with a greater amount of tissues and the worms love it. This means less paper shredding.

"After the worms have eaten all the nutrients and made the poop...it helps grow and replace nutrients Supersonic soil going back on gardens." - Kyle, student

They considered the pros and cons of the 2 systems:

the tumblers are good for small operations and good for dealing with non-seedy weeds.

given the size of the school grounds, to get a supply of 'supersonic soil" they calculated that they would need 5 tumblers.

they have learnt to keep separately: because of hygiene a teacher does the tissues. The students do the greens. They have also learnt not to do the mixing on a windy day!

good compost needs more time in the bins and the tumbler requires less brute strength (although there would need to be systems around this with multiple bins).

"We have compost bin at home on the farm with way more worms. I prefer the tumbler as we dump it and the worms do their thing...turn 5 times and the worms eat it." Eleanore, student

Trial and error were part of the learning. Students observed the tumblers weren't in direct sunlight and knew natural heat was important for assisting and accelerating natural decomposition. One of the tumblers has since been moved into a position where it receives full sunlight to test the differences in compost breakdown speed.

"We have 130 students who pack in pack out. Food scrabs go to tiger bins but we have a job balancing too much /too little. We have a push mower to get extra greens into the tumbler and everybody gets involved in mowing the bits the grounds person can't get to. The students have also been able to self-manage with combination of pack in/ out." - Rob Haddock, lead Enviroschools teacher, Tatuanui School

Covid and winter ills hit hard. When eventually teachers and students were back it on-site, activities needed to be postponed and adapted. Tuākana-tēina groupings had to be changed and social distancing had to be considered. Because of absence of students and leaders, projects took longer and keeping student engagement and the impetus proved difficult. Rodent trapping, previously a regular undertaking, went on the nice to do list rather than need to do from all other elements of school life.

Future evaluation will include recording the amount of brown (carbon) vs green (nitrogen) waste going into the compost tumbler to perfect the recipe over time.

Students and teachers alike are impressed by the difference compost makes to the school's raised gardens.

The compost area is really helpful as it decomposes tissues and grass from our field to make the supersonic soil. The SS helps plants grow more than normal soil. - Kyle, student

We take it over to front gardens in containers to help the plants grow with nutrients." - Eleanore

To target the rodent pest problem, traps were installed nearby and regularly checked. No pests have been caught since the tumblers were installed, which suggests the unwanted visits by rodents has been addressed. To test this theory though, students plan to add detection devices like ink tunnels and chew cards to monitor presence/absence. This will hopefully offer further reassurance that the better-contained food scraps in the tumblers and worm bins are no longer attracting pests.

Still on the plans to do predator work and Enviroschools Facilitator, Ruairi will assist with this and connect the schools with Predator Free Waikato.

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Tumblers help turn around rodent issues at Tatuanui School compost

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Enviroschools is an overarching culture of Tatuanui School in rural Waikato, woven into whole school life including the strategic plan. The school values reflect this in Caring, Attitude, Responsible, Enviro-kid - we care! It started with a problem: rodents were nesting in the school recycling...

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Check out the following Facebook pages
- Oxford St Community Garden (Masterton)
- Ngahere o Te Ora Haumanu - Carterton Community Garden
- Pai Tū Mōkai -Featherston Community Garden
-Te Kura o Papatuanuku Wairarapa Earth School Charitable Trust (Carterton)

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Investigating your soil - experiments to help us understand our soil and how to keep it healthy.

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Investigating your soil - experiments to help us understand our soil and how to keep it healthy.

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Who will be affected or who will you need to be involved or ask some permissions from? 

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Who will be affected or who will you need to be involved or ask some permissions from? 

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Identify your people - caretaker, cafeteria staff, ag / hort staff, Principal etc.

Ask them questions about what they think about your project?

Go prepared with what you are thinking about and why.

Details can come later.

Collect their responses and add them to your thinking.

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Enviroschools Guiding Principles to guide your process - working towards being part of a healthy, peaceful, sustainable community.

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Enviroschools Guiding Principles to guide your process - working towards being part of a healthy, peaceful, sustainable community.

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Waiheke High School and Community Composting

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Waiheke High School and Community Composting

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Ella Singh and Waiheke High School Sustainability Group

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Community Composting System a Natural Choice for Waiheke Students

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Waiheke High School Sustainability Group leader Ella Singh tells us about how funding has enabled the purchase of their first composting system and inspired their vision of a Community Composting hub.

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Contact you local Enviroschools facilitator or Waste education facilitator through the local council.

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Videos and resources about soil and composting

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https://soilsafe.auckland.ac.nz/soilsafe-kids/

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Create your own Eden School Resource - Composting at School

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A Practical Guide for Composting in Schools

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A Practical Guide for Composting in Schools

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Nicola Kawana visits Kelmarna Organic Community Gardens and City Farm to learn how to make good compost on Whānau Living

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The Compost Coach by Kate Flood

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The Community Rescuing Food Waste From Landfill to Make Beautiful Compost | Ben & bEartha

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Get an sense of how much green waste there is after speaking with the caretakers / ag / hort teachers and whether it is available for composting.

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Get an sense of how much green waste there is after speaking with the caretakers / ag / hort teachers and whether it is available for composting.