Alexandra Park tree planting

As a slightly belated celebration of International Day of Forests (21 March), a small group of URRP staff and students planted ten trees at the Alexandra Park estate on 25 March. A pair of white-collared kingfishers flashed aquamarine between the existing trees and called out raucously as we worked.

Ms Edwards and Ms Henry
barely breaking a sweat.

All of the trees were raised in our Dover nursery and all but one (Broad-leafed Mahogany) was an indigenous species. The full list comprised:

• Barringtonia asiatica (Fishkiller)
• Cynometra cauliflora (Nam Nam)
• Hopea bracteata (Merawan Ungu)
• Hopea ferrea (Ceylon Ironwood)
• Litsea elliptica 
• Mimusops elengi (Tanjung, Spanish Cherry)
• Moringa oleifera (Horse-radish tree)
• Shorea materialis 
• Sterculia foetida (Hazel Sterculia, Java Olive)
• Swietenia macrophylla (Broad-leaved Mahogany)

Ríona helped plant five trees.

The Sterculia tree has an interesting etymology: Sterculius was the Roman god of cow dung and "foetida" means stinking! The name refers to the fact that all parts of the tree exude an unpleasant smell while it is flowering.

Mea has planted many trees
in the past 2 years.

A couple of the trees have edible leaves. The young leaves of Litsea elliptica are used as a vegetable side dish or as a flavouring in the spicy Thai sauce, Nam Prik. Meanwhile, Moringa has been hailed as a 'superfood' for its nutritional benefits and multiple culinary uses. The immature green pods are often used in curries. The seeds inside mature pods can be eaten like peas. Even the flowers are edible when cooked. The highly nutritious leaves are cooked and used like spinach. (Walk down Buffalo Road near Little India MRT and you'll see heaps of Moringa leaves on the table outside a vegetable shop.)

Mr Daniels shows the strain of bodybuilding with Moringa.

This week, in the garden…

Some of our K1 students have been wondering about creepy crawlies and things that grow. In small groups, the students visited one of our worm farms and they learned about how these special worms break down fruit and vegetable peels and turn it into valuable fertiliser for our school gardens. The worms are Malaysian blue worms and they are used for vermicomposting. Some of the students were very brave and picked up a very wriggly worm and giggled as it tickled their palms. One worm even leapt out of a student’s hand and landed on the ground. Who knew that worms could be so athletic?

The worm farm has a number of layers and the first layer is where we leave the food scraps. The second layer is where the ‘castings’ collect and the third layer is where the ‘worm tea’ collects. The castings and the tea are produced by the worms, after they eat all the fruit and veggie peels that the K2 and Grade 1 students feed them. The castings and tea contain lots of nutrients that our plants need, so we pass these along to the Incredible Edible Garden group to put on the garden beds.

The next stop was to explore the edible gardens to see how eggplants, dill, kafir lime and basil grow. It was great fun to try and guess what all the different plants were. The K1 students were very clever and could identify the banana trees. They saw a banana flower and how it developed into a whole bunch of smaller bananas.

Photos by Rekha Jansen

Pint Sized Environmental Stewards

As they make their way to the Infant buses at the end of a busy day, Grade 1 students from Ms. Putt’s class stop to pick up any litter they come across. Armed with little buckets, these pint sized environmental stewards are embracing our college mission and doing their bit to take care of our school.

For the past four years, Ms. Putt has integrated this activity into her students’ daily routine and they are an inspiration to the rest of our campus.