Manaiakalani Speech

Bula Vinaka/ Hello My name is  Avishek and I am in Year 8.

I attend  Saint Patrick's School which is a Catholic full primary school in Panmure

This year room 8 were assigned a very big task of rejuvenating an area  in our school grounds which linked directly with  designing  a garden area where there would be a garden for each class. Following the immersion step of our inquiry model we conducted research to develop more knowledge about school gardens. This involved using the internet, using magazines and visiting other school sites to checkout their gardens.  Using Padlet we recorded our prior knowledge as a class. We made groups and we chose what group we wanted to be in. Again using padlet each group formed questions to guide their research to find out more about their area. I joined the mathematicians/measurements group, who were in charge of measuring and solving problems of the mathematical kind to help the designs and ideas of others come to life.

As a group we created many questions that we would have to answer but when we found those answers on google we all started questioning our answers. Because we had so many questions we had to put them all somewhere. After discussion/consultation with groups, our teacher and reflecting on what we had already done, we remembered the free and easy to use app Padlet, that we had used to brainstorm your Ideas. We decided to put our questions in a padlet.

We examined the area to work out the possibilities and marked out a 8 by 5 perimeter. We created a digital layout, initially we wanted each garden to be 3.5 meters in length and 1 meter in width but as a Catholic School we had another component, the Sacred space. This Holy place was to include a setting that would allow opportunity for people to visit and reflect. This initial design left no room for the sacred space so it was back to the drawing board.

A second digital plan was constructed based on manipulating the models that the building team had constructed. (Insert Photo). We changed the perimeter of the garden to 10 by 8m,  but when we were measuring out the perimeter the group and I decided that it was too small and extended the garden once again to 10 by 10 m. We tied rope round building pegs to line the 10 by 10 meter perimeter, the gardens and the sacred place.

Although we used many other resources like, google documents, presentations, drawing and garden design sites, Padlet proved valuable in recording ideas and responding as a group and as a class.

While our Garden is an ongoing task, we have all developed our research and questioning skills, together with our ability to work collaboratively in groups and collectively as a class.

I intend to share my learning in my blog and a new site we are making for the Board of Trustees.