…And here is what KidsFirst Linclon kindergarten teacher,Jeanne Williams, had to share about her kids’ taking leading roles as kaitiaka for the longfin:
In short, our kindergarten participated in this project by making a piece of the eel after Stephanie Bowman visited our kindergarten and shared her story about Velvet the NZ longfin eel and how the eels are endangered in New Zealand.
As we are an Enviroschools kindergarten (the first kindergarten to be awarded the Green Gold Award) we promote and encourage the children to participate in community events and projects to help encourage and support environmental strategies and ideas. Even at this young age the children learn that they can make a difference and that their voices are important! The eel was put on display at the Lincoln event centre over the long weekend (is only part of the whole eel, which we have been told is over 100 m long).
This has been a nation wide project and many different schools and centres have participated to make this eel so long that it will hopefully be long enough to wrap around the beehive and will end up hanging in Te papa after its travels of New Zealand. It will also travel to Tonga before the pieces will be sent back to the different schools and centres that made the pieces.
The children and some very helpful parents walked this long eel over to the Lincoln Primary school to show the children there at assembly and then walked on to the event centre to have it on display for the community to see.
Thanks to Parents too!
Jeanne Williams, Head Teacher, Kidsfirst Kindergartens Lincoln
Thanks Jeanne and all you environmentally active kid leaders!!!