Aug 12, 2011

The Grand and Otago Skink



From our visitor last week we have discovered that two of New Zealand's most endangered animals live in our region. These animals are the Grand Skink and the Otago Skink. After having an amazing presentation, where all of our questions were answered we sat down to think about what we knew, what we had learnt and how we could show this knowledge in different ways.





Some of us looked at 'Food Webs', some of us used a Venn Diagram to compare Skinks and other animals and many of us looked at hows to design a special garden for skinks. Once the landscape plans were drawn up a few of the groups went further and created scale models of their designs.




On looking and reflecting on their plans the students decided that they would like to try and build a Skink garden at Hawea Flat School and we are looking into how we can carry this action out over the rest of the term.

This is quite a big task and we will need to...
  • look at getting permission from the Board and maybe the Department of Conservation (Skinks are protected animals).
  • decide where to place the garden. Selected spots will need to be assessed for hours of sunlight and wind.
  • choose a design from our designs or maybe merge them together into a new design. We might also need to talk to someone who is a landscape designer to get some help with our design.
  • find the materials that we need to build our garden. The children might need to fund raise or write letters to ask for discounts or donations?
  • contact DOC for advice and look to see if other schools have tried to make a Skink garden before because they might have some advice.
So with all these plans in action and a busy term ahead we will have a lot of work to do. Keep you eyes on this space to see how we progress.

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