Congratulations to the students and teachers of St Teresa’s School, Bluff

Recently Environment Southland and the Department of Conservation organised a combined event bringing together the Southland Environment and Southland Conservation Awards.

The 2013 Schools Award: (sponsored by Milligans Nursery and the Department of Conservation) was won by St Teresa’s School, Bluff for their efforts in planting 3000 native trees and plants on Bluff Hill, and in recognition of the way environmental issues have been incorporated into the curriculum throughout the school as part of their inquiry learning. Their entries in the Southland Social Studies and theScience Fairs usually achieve winning results.

St Teresa’s has been an Enviroschool since 2008 having been asked to join because of their efforts in setting up a school vegetable garden and in attempting to make the school an environmentally friendly place in which to work and study. St Teresa’s is currently a Silver award Enviroschool.

The school has gone from strength to strength, extending the vegetable garden to a larger area of the school and including a chicken coop with four hens and a rooster. Additional projects the school has been involved in are possum trapping on Bluff Hill, and joining in tree planting as part of the Living Legends events in Otatara every year. They get involved in beach clean ups, litter collection, composting, paper recycling as part of Paper4Trees, where the paper they recycle is exchanged for native trees. Their current art project is to use recycled newspaper to make beads to form jewellery.

The students and staff of St Teresa’s, school in true Dominican spirit are committed to making their environment a sustainable and environmentally friendly place, where God’s creation is cared about and respected.