The Enviroschools tent at the Sustainable Home and Garden Show in Kāpiti was buzzing again this year. Some of our schools put wondrous creative energy into colourful gardens themed this year with the focus on butterflies and bees.  Other schools created interesting hand made items to sell and activities to inspire. It was a great chance for people to come and engage with the resources and activities available through the Enviroschools program, and a time for our amazing local schools to share what being an Enviroschool means to them.  One of the teachers shared that the show had really cultivated a strong feeling of whanaungatanga as so many people pulled in to make the gardens come alive.  

This was particularly evident for Kāpiti college, where many different departments pulled together to make their garden a reality. The mathematics department calculated and the carpentry team carefully measured and made garden boxes in the shape of honey comb, the english department had written poems, the art department painted butterfly and bee hexagonal works. We had Taylor Finderup from Kāpiti College with us all weekend to bring awareness to shark finning, and it was lovely to see some of our younger students listening intently and sharing their own knowledge and passion on the subject.

 Paraparaumuplaycentre had a colourful lively and accessible garden and lent their clay table to us for lots of small hands to create with. This was an interesting contrast to the coffee grind playdough from Little Earth Montessori who had also made lavender wands and lavender infused oil.  Paraparaumu school showed fantastic creative initiativewith archways into their garden made out of empty milk bottles anda sound garden with hanging recycled materials, and used crushed recycled glass as a pathway to their garden beds.  Raumati south school ran a workshop on making seed envelopes from recycled materials for lettuce seeds collectedfrom their gardens to give away.  The creator of the Cloak of Protection card game, Gil Hemming ­was also in our tent and many students came and had lots of fun learning and playing the game. In the food tent Raumati south kindergarten were running a cooking workshop based on their cookbook that focusses a lot on produce from the garden.  It was a real celebration of our community and the diversity, strengths and commitment to sustainability we all share.