Marotiri School’s Taonga Māra

In Term one 2025, Marotiri School started working with Kids Greening Taupō. They came along to our Show Plants Love Day and helped mulch our plants, then our coordinator went to their school teach every class about the importance of native plants. A walk around the school with some keen tamariki led to the discovery of an amazing little native area called ‘Marotiri’s Taonga Māra’. It was planted when the school was built in 1961! There were some fantastic established native trees in this area and there were lots of little signs for native plants. Unfortunately, many of the signs were no longer by the correct tree, as the area had changed over time. The signs were also all very simple silver plaques with only a tree name on them. One of the teachers had seen Hilltop School’s awesome signage and the suggestion was made that Marotiri’s special area needed some special signs too. The students made a video to apply for the Kids Greening Taupō Contact Energy Take Action Fund to complete this work.

We had a BIG day at Marotiri School in Term 2. Each class had a session in the hall about biosecurity and keeping invasive clams out of our lake. They all got to see kākahi shells and compare them with the invasive freshwater clams. After that, we worked on the signage project for the native trees in their school grounds and planted native plants donated by The Possum. We even planted a special native broom. Then, the students put on the new gloves from Mitre 10 MEGA Taupō to weed the aluminium plant that is taking over their native area. We decided that we needed a native ground cover to compete with the weed, so we transplanted pieces of kōwaowao from the other side of the school into the native planting!

It was interesting hearing the tamariki comparing the invasive weeds in the garden with the invasive clams. They understood how an invasive species is something that has been introduced from somewhere else, doesn't have any natural controls, and harms the environment that it is in. They were comparing how the invasive weed was taking over the garden and taking the space of the native plants with how the clams are taking over the river and taking the space of native species like kākahi and koura/kēwai. So much learning in one day!