Greening the rubble and filling the gaps!

Greening the rubble and filling the gaps!

Over the past term, an energetic, motivated team of Year 7 and 8 students have been looking at how we can 'jazz up' some of the empty spaces around the school.

Initially we walked around the school and identified potential sites that could be used.

Next we collated our ideas.....some of them were really exciting, but not so realistic!

After much discussion, debate and thorough research, we decided upon the idea of creating an outdoor lounge.

The big ideas that we worked with were...

• People work together to bring a vision into reality.
• Changing the physical environment does not have to be permanent.
• A project must be well planned and fit for the purpose in order to succeed and be relevant.

Next, it was off to 'town' to do some real life research.  Have you checked out the different Gap Filler sites around our city?  The website www.gapfiller.org.nz tells you what is going on, and where to find different transitional installations.  You can even play Gap Filler mini golf by downloading the app!  

We visited Gap Filler HQ and talked with Sally about how we could move our own project further. She had some great suggestions for us.

  

Next it was back to the 'drawing board'.  We needed to put a very strong proposal together and present it to the school leadership team before we could make our dream become a reality.  At this stage we delegated the tasks, and broke off into smaller groups to complete our part of the presentation.

Our teams were; event management, marketing and blogging, budgeting, proposal writing, funding applications, graphic design (concept maps), and technical assistance. Our Key Competencies of participating and contributing, self managing, and communicating, were vitally important at all stages of this major project.  

The final presentation was a huge success.  We were well prepared, confident and achieved what we had aimed to do......Sandy, Michelle (and Mr Lee) have said....YES!  We have been given the 'go-ahead' to create an amazing transitional outdoor lounge .  It will be a place where students can relax, play music, have impromptu shows, play games such as chess and cards, watch the sports on the fields, and enjoy each others company.  It will be bright and inviting and we know you will want to hang out there.

Look out for this happening in Term 4.  Please feel free to come and talk to anyone in the team about ideas or contributions that you may have for our lounge.  We value your input.