Motupipi School Wins Nature Study Shield for 1968

Forest and Bird, Issue 171, 1 February 1969, Page 22

Motupipi School Wins Nature Study Shield for 1968

MOTUPIPI School won the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society’s Shield last year with 136 points. Collingwood District High School was second with 114 points, and Henley was third with 107 points. There are five sections in the competition—plants, ferns, shells, minerals, and area study—and each entry receives a certificate denoting a classification of excellent, very good, or good. These certificates carry with them points foi* the school as follows: Excellent, 10 points, very good, 5 points, and good, 2 points; each entry gains half a point for the school, with a maximum of 25 points. Children in each class may get an excellent mark regardless of entries from higher classes; that is, a child in Primer 4 is not trying to compete with one in Standard 3. The shield is a fine piece of workmanship, made by Mr P. Kitchingman, a jeweller whose name will be familiar to older Nelsonians, and on it are inscriptions which date back to 1928. It was donated by Mrs Perrine Moncrieff, well known throughout New Zealand and overseas as an outstanding ornithologist, to encourage the study of nature by school children. For many years school children were encouraged to write nature diaries, the best entry winning the shield for the child’s school, and there were also two book prizes, for the senior and junior sections. In recent

years it was felt that this system was not in accord with modern educational principles, and the focus of the competition was shifted from the individual to the school. The judges found both the standard and the number of entries last year to be extremely high and noted that much time and care had been taken by the children. The judge of the fern collection (Mr T. W. Kibblewaite) commented on one entry: “The wonderful variety, especially of filmy ferns was a delight to see. It is very doubtful if a better entry could be found in any age group in New Zealand.” Another entrant used photographs to illustrate a collection of plants and trees, and this also would score very high marks in any competition in the country. The shield committee of the Nelson Section had hoped to be able to have an exhibition of the entries at the local A. and P. show, but owing to the difficulties of finding suitable accommodation and of preventing damage to the exhibits, it was reluctantly decided to abandon the idea for that year at least. The section wishes to thank the following judges for their work: Shells, Mr and Mrs Ray Anderson; native trees and plants and area study, Messrs J. Cross and B. Ashby; minerals, Mr J. Stanton; and ferns, Mr T. W. Kibblewaite.