Construction is Underway - Day One and Two

Breaking Ground

Here we are digging out the foundation and laying sand in preparation for construction on Monday...

Construction Begins!

Construction is set to get underway on MONDAY! We will have lots of photos to share along the way!

The team has broken into management groups to guide the construction process over the coming week.

As a team we have consulted our community, seeked advice and guidance from experts, sourced materials and all the classes made time capsules to put in the earth seat.

Here are a few insights into how we hope the week will run with an extract from an email we sent all the classes...

The students will get muddy as the mixing of the clay, wood chip, wet newspaper and cement will be done by foot. (much like stomping on grapes) Once the adobe mix is combined we will send for the remaining class members to scoop up and place the mixture on to the Taniwha. 

We ask that children come in clothes they are not too fussed about so if you could pre -warn your class of the day they will be helping it would be appreciated. If anyone has some old towels that could be used for clean up please bring them along.

We still would love to include some green and brown glass bottles in the side of the taniwha as decoration. If you can ask your class to bring some along that would be awesome and of course if you have some in your recycling at home we could use those too:)

We really appreciate the help of Mr Callaghan and Mr Marriot.

Soil testing

Today the Taniwha group tested different soils from around Goodwood School with Robin from EnviroSchools.
We used topsoil and clay from around the pool area and topsoil from T.J's farm. We mixed paper pulp and cement with each soil type and then formed them into equal sized "mud-balls". We have left them on trays in Mr Callaghan's shed to dry over the Easter holiday. When we come back to school we have to turn the "mud-balls" to help with drying. In week 11 we will perform a drop test with each ball to find out which mixture provided us with the strongest ball.

Which soil sample do you believe will be the strongest one for us to use for our Taniwha seat?

Surveying our Community!

We would like to invite you to fill in our Survey Monkey about the design and placement of our Taniwha Seat.

We would like to have all suggestions by Friday 19 April.

Surveying our Community


Thank you so much!!

Learning from Others

Yesterday we visited Hukanui School, Frankton School and visited the Sustainable Backyard at the Hamilton Gardens.

WOW! We have lots to share about what we saw, what we learned and the ideas we now have.

Here are a few photos of our day for now - we will share more very soon.

Thank you so much to the parents helpers and to the schools for having us visit them.

Presenting our Koha (mandarin tree) to Hukanui School

Chickens at Hukanui - they give poos and eggs!

Earth Wall in Hukanui Living Room

Earth Seat at Sustainable Backyard

We felt so special when we arrived at Frankton School!

Earth Seat at Frankton School

Two chefs who made us rhubarb (from school garden) crumble while we
watched slideshow of earth seat construction at Frankton.

We even got to plant our koha for Frankton School (mandarin tree) before we left!

Again, thank you to the schools for making us feel so welcome and sharing not only their earth walls/seats, but all their enviro journey and projects with us. It was an amazing day.

Our next step is to meet and plan out our journey using the things we learned from Hukanui and Frankton. We are so excited!

Our First Meeting

In our first meeting we discussed a name for our group. We also talked about our group rules and roles. This is important so that we can stay focused on our task.

We worked through an Action Plan from the Enviro Schools - there was lots of chatting and 'going off track' as we discussed the many elements of this project.

We invited Mr Reid to our meeting as many of our ideas needed to be heard by him. 

With Mr Reid we discussed where the seat could go, what its purpose was, the cost, the help and a general discussion about how to get started. From here we were able to identify the skills, knowledge and tasks we need to gather.

Our next step is to survey students, teachers and parents to see if they feel the same way as us that our school needs a quiet safe reflection place in our environment.

Discussing our project aims with Mr Reid.

Brainstorming location of our seat - accessible for all ages!

Great groups listen and 'piggyback' ideas.


We have lots of ideas and will share them with you very shortly!