school builds "world first" island - panasonic interactive whiteboard

A Hamilton Primary School is leading the way in a vibrant educational strategy, and with the completion of the first phase of their own eco-island, it comes again.
Rod Street School is known for its diverse learning programs, and President Shane Ngatai says the new eco-island will be a treat for the entire community and elsewhere, open to other schools across the country.
The idea was raised three years ago by a group of environmental-conscious students known as the Green team on their way back from a trip to the eco-island of marengadotari, when a student asks why they can't have such an environment in their own backyard.
"I just turned around and said, why not?
This is the beginning of the whole project, "said Mr Ngatai.
After intense research, the project began a year ago when 60,000 m³ of the surface soil was dumped on the school's rugby grounds.
"The students went to the city council and got a list of all the real estate developers in the area who were building new homes, and then, they went down that list and found some close enough to the school, and approached them, and persuaded them to bring a truck of top soil to Rod Street, to pay nothing, much more financially than to take it to hollotiu and pay a truck for $160.
"In return for saving them money, the company allows them to use excavators to help move the soil to where they need it.
So it started.
These ideas are constantly emerging. "They [the students]
I want to have a classroom on the island so that a: They can stay away from the weather, B: study the animals, animals and plants on the island.
Ngatai said: "So they found an architect, Tim Gisler from Gisler lects at Te Awamutu, who asked him to make a conceptual plan for the classroom.
Gisler agreed to board the ship free of charge with the help of the children;
A plan was created to use three containers in a "u" group, which will accommodate an interactive whiteboard with ipad, science lab and maimai.
The idea also comes from students, says Ngatai, from pop music.
A village built in Christchurch after the earthquake.
"One of our students was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the Economist conference at the University of Canterbury, so she flew there at the age of 10 to make her meeting focus notes, in front of 300 economists, while she was there, she organized a meeting with the creators of pop musicup village.
"She met him and got all the information on how to use containers to build retail space," he said . ".
"These are the types of children we create in this school.
Gessler told Ngatai that they had to look for containers, which in turn brought another major disaster to New Zealand.
"I contacted Sealink, a company specializing in recycling containers.
"We are asking for Providence on these containers and it has transcribed them from Rena.
But it will cost a lot of money to buy three big containers here.
But we were really lucky that a year ago we invited the directors of the company to be here and they saw what we were trying to achieve and sold us the container for almost no cost.
"Not only that, they also cut the window frames to the containers and door frames and reinforced them with steel to meet the engineering requirements, with little to nothing.
"Then the transportation company took them almost nothing.
But not everything goes smoothly.
When the school was sitting on a mud-coal swamp, Mr engatai had to ask for help from the geography community.
Bob Taylor, technical engineer
Fortunately, Mr. Taylor joined in and Bunnings was also involved in the procurement of the large amount of processing piles needed for the project.
Mr Ngatai said the island would not have been possible without the generosity of numerous businesses, including their good relations with DOC.
"So far, the project has cost about $100,000, but we are lucky if we spend $10,000," he said . ".
The next phase of the project is to build ponds and streams around the island for eel and freshwater crayfish and install solar panels on top of the container.
Mr. Ngatai said that the Green Team will engage with companies specializing in these products in field days in June.