Simon’s blog

Simon is our Education for Sustainability coordinator. Read about some of his latest adventures here:

Silver Enviroschool

January 30th, 2013

Queenstown Montessori are a very committed Enviroschool, even before they joined the programme they were dong lots of work in order to create a more sustainable future for their centre and students. The were the first Bronze early childhood centre …more

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A very important visitor…..

October 5th, 2012

One of the things I’ve come to expect as working as an Enviroschools facilitator, is to expect the unexpected. It was most definitely the unexpected when I received an email from the National Team informing me that the new Minister …more

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The Outlook for Someday

July 4th, 2012

For those of you that don’t know, The Outlook for Someday, is a challenge to all New Zealanders under the age of 24 to make a short film about any sustainable topic that is dear to them. It is now …more

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A day out at QPS and Ben Lomond

January 6th, 2012

Once a year I help arrange a student teacher hui for the Enviroschools of Central Otago, regular readers of my blog will remember last years which we held at Rippon and Te Kakano and was indeed a resounding success. One …more

Tags: doc, enviroschools, otago, queenstown, skyline, wilding pines
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Worm Farming at the Copthorne Hotel

January 4th, 2012

A few months ago during one of my visits to Queenstown Primary, Nicky asked me if I would like to sit in on a meeting with Nathalie McAuliffe from the Copthorne Hotel in Queenstown. Nathalie is in charge of the …more

Tags: Copthorne Hotel, enviroschools, qps, queenstown, Worm Farm
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Another Bronze Enviroschool – Queenstown Montessori

September 19th, 2011

The Enviroschools programme isn’t just for primary schools, we have one youth group and two early childhood centres signed up to the programme here in the Queenstown Lakes District. The way that I work with the early childhood centres is …more

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QPS is a Bronze Enviroschool

June 27th, 2011

This week I was inspired by the journey of reflection we took as the Enviroschool team looked back over the work that the school has been doing and decided that Queenstown Primary School are now a Bronze Enviroschool. Queenstown Primary …more

Tags: award, bronze, education for sustainability, empowered, enviroschools, qps, queenstown, reflection, students, waste
Posted in At School | 1 Comment »

Waste Audits

June 21st, 2011

I’ve said it for years and I’m sure I’ll still be saying it for years to come – Waste is easy! It’s also one of the easiest places to start or check in with your journey towards sustainability. Waste is something we all have experience of, it’s in our daily lives – even if we don’t want it, it is thrust upon us without a care in the world as to the damage it may do. But……does it have to be this way?

Tags: audit, enviroschools, landfill, organics, recycling, rubbish, sustianability, waste
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Shaping Our Future

May 10th, 2011

Ever since I first heard about the “Shaping Our Future Forums” I have been keen as mustard to get some of our young people along to participate and have their voice heard. Megan and Blake, from Wanaka’s Young Change Makers, were also keen as mustard to get involved. We had no idea how it was going to work or if would even be interesting. It turns out that it was in fact epic, our voices were heard and now a lot more people know about WYCM!

Tags: community, economics, otago polytechnic, qldc, shaping our future, wanaka
Posted in At School | 1 Comment »

Term 2 Week 1 – My Roundup

May 7th, 2011

I’ve Been thinking about putting together a brief summary of my week accompanied, of course, with pictures snapped as I make my way through my wonderful adventures of work. This is week 1 term 2

Tags: dunedin, enviroschools, kahu youth, qps, queenstown, regeneration, wycm, youth
Posted in At School | 3 Comments »

WYCM get ready for winter

May 4th, 2011

One year in and Wanaka’s Young Change Makers has achieved heaps. We’ve grown, we’ve shrunk, we’ve done rad stuff and now we’re on a mission to step up. With Post Its and large paper at the ready, a collection of inquiring young minds, a RAD space and some food we are ready to start an epic winter of action!

Tags: earth day, enviroschools, farmers market, kahu youth, kitchen, pledges, soup, wanaka young change makers
Posted in At School | 2 Comments »

EPIC Earth Day Actions and Celebrations

May 4th, 2011

Earth Day is a global celebration of all the positive actions being carried out across the globe to help us protect our future. Thanks to some amazing volunteer organisation from Amber, Wanaka was set to celebrate Earth Day in a spectacular fashion and take some action!

Tags: action, earth day, enviroschools, new zealand, te kakano, trees, volunteer, wanaka
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Mapping Wanaka Station Park

April 14th, 2011

It’s almost a year since I started working with Wanaka’s Young Change Makers. One of the first actions we took part in was to create a Google Map of the cool free stuff to do in Wanaka, not only for residents of Wanaka but also so that any visitors that come here can see what’s going on that won’t cost them the Earth.

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QPS is going worm crazy

April 12th, 2011

Queenstown Primary have been doing an amazing job on tackling their food waste issues. Most of the school is into it, they understand the issues and have been working on ironing out the process of collecting and sorting the waste into the relevant streams. What we realised we needed to do was regenerate the slightly decrepit wooden worm farm.

Tags: enviroschools, farm, lunch, qps, queenstown, vermicast, waste, worms
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Regeneration Wanaka

April 12th, 2011

We love it when we have visitors come to our town. We generally find that they bring with them ideas and energy that we can feed from, they inspire us and guide us in new ways of taking action and coming together. We had the Regeneration crew visit us two years ago and I personally have been very excited to have them back.

Tags: aotearoa, mount aspiring college, nz, queenstown, regeneration, splash room, sustainability, wakatipu high, wanaka, young people, youth
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WYCM go Foraging

March 9th, 2011

Wanaka is a buzz of talk about foraging at the moment. We have fruit and nut trees all over town laden with gorgeous edible delights. The conversation and opinions are varied about how we go about using and sharing these amazing resources. Some are easy to find, some are remote, some public & some private. Monday is Regeneration Wanaka and we need to be fed. It seemed only natural for Wanaka’s Young Change Makers to go exploring town looking for some edible delights.

Tags: apples, enviroschools, foraging, kahu youth, regeneration, wanaka, wycm
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Worm Farms and Wilding Pine Control with QPS

February 18th, 2011

Wednesday was one of those EPIC days that happen from time to time in my life. It was my first visit of the year to Queenstown Primary and I had been tasked with working with students on worm farms and …more

Tags: action, pine, qps, queenstown, wilding, worms
Posted in At School | 1 Comment »

MYD Funding Applications

February 18th, 2011

I’ve been working with Wanaka Young Change Makers, a Kahu Youth group, for almost a year now. We’ve done some amazing things in that year; carried out a waste audit at MAC, made a movie, explored Wanaka for free stuff …more

Tags: enviroschools, funding, kahu youth, ministry of youth development, myd, park, regeneration, station, wanaka
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Regeneration 2011 – Wanaka Youth Jam

February 9th, 2011

Well here we go, my first blog post on the new uber Wastebusters wordpress place in hyperspace. Exciting. It’s almost as exciting as the 2011 Regeneration tour. Readers of my blog will no doubt remember when the Regen crew came …more

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New website!

December 27th, 2010

Hi and welcome to the brand spanking new Wanaka Wastebusters website. Built over the last 6 months (we’ve been very busy :-) by almost everybody in the office we are still tinkering in the background so please let us know …more

Posted in At home, At School, At Wastebusters, At work, Projects | 2 Comments »

Simon’s blog

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