Teacher Renata Jackson said the children realised early in the inquiry they were already involved in a lot of recycling initiatives at home, just as part of their rural lifestyle.
‘‘Country kids definitely have a different perspective on the topic than do city kids.
‘‘They realised that they actually recycled already, without even knowing they were recycling,'' Mrs Jackson said.
Linda Bos (7) said at home they did many things to try to minimise the waste created in the house.
‘‘We recycle tyres by using them on top of covers to hold down silage.
‘‘We put food scraps into the bucket and then use them in the compost bin,'' she said.
Ashley Stevenson (5) said when a heifer died on the farm, his father would process it for dog tucker.
‘‘That's recycling,'' he said.
Among the other ways pupils at Te Tipua School said they recycled at home included putting newspapers on the flower gardens and covering them with grass clippings to allow them to decompose, reusing plastic shopping market bags, feeding scraps to the pigs or the chickens, reusing drink bottles for home-made ginger beer, and not flushing the toilet every time they used it to conserve water.
Mrs Jackson said the children were in the early stages of their inquiry into waste, but she was ‘‘amazed'' at how much they already knew about issues like recycling.
‘‘They've just been to the transfer station last week where they saw recycling in action.
‘‘They saw the people separating out the waste, like green waste, whiteware, gas bottles and glass bottles.''
The junior class had made their own worm farm, with worms dug from the garden, but they had just been notified they had won a ‘‘real'' worm farm in a competition run by the Office Products Depot.
‘‘We will have to get some special worms for our new worm farm when it arrives.
‘‘We plan to recycle the worm waste - worm tea - and put it into our vegetable garden.
‘‘When we use the vegetables we then put the scraps back into the worm farm, and complete the cycle,'' Mrs Jackson said.
She said the school was hoping to plant some vegetables to enable them to have a school Christmas dinner.
‘‘We did plant some last year, but unfortunately the rabbits got to them before we did.
‘‘We'll just have to make sure we protect our plants a bit better this time.''
Te Tipua School has also just taken delivery of a large composting bin, bought with funds provided by Public Health South.
Mrs Jackson said for so early on in the inquiry process, the children of Te Tipua School were making ‘‘great progress'' down the path of reducing, recycling and reusing.
‘‘That's a reflection of their country lifestyles,'' Mrs Jackson said.
