A school on the remote island of Nassau in the northern Cook Islands is finding solutions to help their community and further opportunities and new learning for their students.

Last month, senior students from Apii Nassau took a 20-minute walk along the northeast beach of Tua Tokelau to collect plastic water bottles washed ashore for their garden project.

According to Ketia Kiliuyi, the school’s media officer and teacher aide, the island itself doesn’t really have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

The school teachers and students had been planning for a while to have a school garden to grow fresh fruits and vegetables.

However, due to financial constraints, Apii Nassau lacks the money to purchase resources to build a garden.

“Being a small and remote government school, the school does not make money other than small donations from families on the island,” explains Kiliuyi, one of the two teacher aides at the school.

Through brainstorming and online tips, the school discovered that plastic bottles filled with water can be used to build a garden and apparently keep the soil cool in hot weather.

Kiliuyi said there are always bottles on the beach, so it was a good opportunity not only to collect plastic bottles for the school’s garden project but also to recycle washed-up items.

However, she was shocked by the number of plastic bottles scattered along the beach. For the students and other teachers, though, this sight was normal – they were used to the amount of waste that washed ashore.

“For them, it’s just normal, it’s just the way it is over here, bottles are always washing up on the beach as well as other things like empty petrol drums and planks of wood and other random stuff.”

The east side of the island often collects plastic bottles and other waste, as the wind typically blows from that direction

After they were done collecting the bottles, the students were able to identify that the bottles were all Asian brands. These brands were searched online and later discovered that they were Chinese brands, most probably dumped by Chinese fishing boats.

The plastic bottles collected on April 7 were enough to start the school’s garden project. The project is set to begin in term two which started this week.

Apii Nassau is planning to put their garden along the outside verandas of the classrooms. They believe it will also help the classrooms stay cool.

According to Kiliuyi, the garden will also have flowers and plants to minimise the heat in the classrooms.

Due to climate change and rising temperatures, classrooms can become very hot, leading to student fatigue and headaches. Therefore, having a garden just outside could bring in a cooling breeze, she adds.

Another exciting project Apii Nassau undertook in term one was teaching their students about the islands of the Cook Islands for geography. The teachers wanted the students to learn about the different islands, their unique characteristics and culture

It was significant and timely for the students to learn about the other islands because most of them will be visiting Rarotonga for the Constitution Celebrations in August this year, Kiliuyi said.

“Being in Rarotonga they will be experiencing a new culture and a way of life and they will also be meeting new people and friends from the other islands too,” she said.

The school’s senior students presented their geography posters on April 10. Each student and pair was assigned islands to research. They created PowerPoint presentations and posters detailing what they learned about the islands, including their differences and importance.

Apii Nassau also took an initiative of making gifts for a family from Nassau who reside overseas. The family will be donating reading books and resources to the school when they travel to Rarotonga in August.

The senior classes as well as the teachers have decided to make necklaces using lantern tree seeds locally known as kalaka. 

The students went out to the forest and collected lantern tree seeds. They soaked the collected seeds in mud from the plantations for a few days to clean off the outside.

This school term, the students will wash the dirt off the seeds and use oil to make them shine, preparing them to be sewn as beads into a necklace. It is the students’ first time attempting to make a beaded necklace.

The students are also making kikau brooms and hand-painted pareu as part of their thank you gifts for the donations.

Last term, Apii Nassau had only two teacher aides, Kiliuyi and Tepi Ngametua, with another teacher from Pukapuka, who travelled to Nassau to look after the school while principal Pana Ngametua and teacher Teautu Neiao were overseas.