Eco-classroom uses wine bottles to insulate floor

Year six student Katie Lush.

There’s been great excitement down at Hukanui School’s ‘Living Room’, eco-classroom building site. After nearly five years of planning, building started in July.

This marked the beginning of a new stage of involvement for the students, participating in the building process.

During August the students were involved in their first part of this process, laying the wine bottles for under floor insulation. The community had collected over 1500 wine bottles with approximately 600 of those having messages in them from students and community.

After three hours of great teamwork and dedication, approximately 1000 wine bottles were laid in sand.

The wine bottles are one section of the three-sectioned under floor insulation that will be monitored by the students when the building is finished to see how much heat is generated from each section.

Students dressed in donated safety vests and hard hats enthusiastically took to this task under instructions from community experts.

The students also look forward to making and placing the clay bricks in the earth walls, measuring windows and doors required, placing interior environmentally friendly insulation and assisting in the pre-wiring of their building.

Many strategies have been put in place to make these opportunities accessible to the students. Specifically designed Health and Safety procedures and preset ‘tools down’ site access days for the students make this possible.

This project continues to lead the way nationally in student involvement in ecobuilding.

— written by Enviro teacher Michelle White