In living livings in the past few weeks we have been doing many different things one of which is checking the traps. When we check the traps we have been checking them at Haruatai Park. the traps at Haruatai park were not very successful and we didn’t catch any rats or pests. but then we set up our own traps in Te Aho Aho (garden) with the help of Matua David a Doc volunteer. The class in total set up 6 traps and split into groups of 3 or 4. Aubrey, Ari and I have moved our trap 3 times and now it has caught 3 rats. The last rat we caught was probably about 2 and a ha;f weeks old and the was maggots all through its skin and when we picked up the trap they were falling out, they also filled up the trap box with blood. It smelt like incredibly disgusting. At first we put t it behind one of the building the garden, but it did not work, so because of that we put it behind some pallets. The trap is now placed in a bush where the stream used to flow though.
We also did some weed research, Aubrey and I researched: gorse, stinging nettle, dandelion and butter cup. We made a small poster with all 4 of them on it. The poster was on a piece of paper out of our book split in 4 and it had who, what, when, how, where, why. then we made a slide about buttercup and gorse. We had to do this very quickly because we started late compared to every one else. Aubrey made the background of the slide a literal buttercup and a block of butter.
We then chose a garden box outside the class and pulled out all the weeds and carrots and overgrown plants. There was also coriander, leek, spring onion, buttercup, and many types of other weeds in the box. I also found a very old toy monkey with faded face, which I thought was very funny. Once all the plants were taken out we put some fresh soil on top of the old soil and mixed it through. Then took the weeds to the compost bin in Te Aho Aho. We plan to plant some more plant sin the garden box once its ready.
We also tried to make worm farms it started off quite good, we took 5 worms out of the ground and had plenty of food and soil for them. But Aubrey and I started to grow a plant in it, which was very surprising. At first we thought it was a pumpkin but now we think its a potato. So we have been watering it and putting it in the sun, on the window sill at the side of the class. Next to the year 11’s plants that they have been growing.
So far, we have been making a positive impact on the environment and taking a proactive stance to our learning in our science class. We plan to catch more rats and grow more plants for a better future.