Global connections

A Year 4 unit of inquiry resulted in providing Ghanaian children with five-star rated New Zealand-made nutrition bars and supporting the development of the first STEM class in rural Ghana!

Right before the first lockdown, our Year 4 girls had decided to organise a charity run to support underprivileged students in a school in rural Ghana.

Building on their unit of inquiry, which looked into the inter-connectedness of our body systems, the girls discovered the importance of nutrition and the global inequalities that come with poor nutrition. In an endeavour to take action, and realising that Dio parent Sir Ray Avery had developed Amigo nutrition five-star rated bars, the girls, together with their teacher, Mrs Annie Snedden, took up the challenge to raise money to buy some of those bars for children in Ghana.

They got their timing right as they ran on a beautiful Sunday morning, a few days before Auckland was moved to into Level 3 lockdown. Close to 40 girls, supported by their friends and families, ran a combined 200km to raise more than $2,500 for this noble cause. It was wonderful to see the girls put their hearts and souls into this race; walking, running or sprinting to log as many kilometres as possible for their ‘peers from afar’. Thanks to the generosity of Anastasia’s parents, Sir Ray and Anna Avery, the girls were able to buy a significant number of Amigo Nutrition bars.

As you can imagine, getting those bars to Ghana was made slightly more complicated by COVID-19, but nothing stopped the determination of our Year 4 girls and their parents. After weeks in transit and at border facilities, and lots of importation paperwork, the Amigo bars finally made it to the students in Ghana, filling them with joy – and nutrients! Special thanks go to the Kinet family for their facilitation of this transfer.

But our Year 4 girls did not stop there! With extra money in the pot, they were able to sponsor the first-ever STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) class in rural Ghana.

The impact of this venture was picked up by Edmund Hillary Fellow Mark Pavlyukovskyy (Founder of Minecraft and Piper Computer Kit). Touched by their initiative, committed to give several Mochi sets and their full story book library (to teach children coding robotics without screens) to the children in Ghana. This will equip their classroom, which for now only has walls. Mark had done volunteer work in education in Ghana a few years ago and was touched by our Dio girls’ work.

We are deeply impressed by this initiative from our Year 4 girls. It illustrates how through vision, entrepreneurship, drive, individual and collective contributions, creativity and collaboration with others, you can have an impact on another’s life – even that of a child you have never met, living on the other side of the planet.

Maybe we can’t make a difference on a global scale, but we can make a huge difference in a small community. This has been a great place to start. Well done Year 4!

Insect creations

Year 1 students used their science knowledge in art to create sculptures of new bug species. Under the transdisciplinary theme ‘Sharing the Planet’, they inquired into the unique features of living creatures. Throughout this inquiry they learnt to categorise living creatures, identify their different needs for survival and talked about our personal responsibility for living things.

As part of their learning in art, students were given the opportunity to observe and draw insects from home during lockdown. They learnt about a Canadian nature artist, Raku Inoue, and had a go at creating a nature collage. Back at school, the girls created a bug sculpture from recycled containers and packets to show their understanding about the body parts and main features of insects. Recycled containers were used to form the three main parts of their insects, with additional features to represent the legs, eyes, wings and antennae.