As a class, we brainstormed what a Student Volunteer Army does as the kids really had no idea. We had a look at what the SVA did when the Christchurch earthquakes occurred and that gave the students a clue. We talked about roles that each person had in the army and how we could adapt those roles to what we wanted to do.

After a lot of backward and forward discussions, the children decided that they would like to do something about cleaning the bush area around our community. We wrote a letter to our parents asking for help and assistance and set a date to do the cleanup.

Before we went, we made predictions about how much rubbish we would find, why people leave rubbish there, and what rubbish we would find. We spent 4 hours in the bush collecting rubbish and generally tidying the area up. After that, we brought all the rubbish back to school and collated our findings. We then sorted the rubbish into recyclable items and general waste.

The children were amazed at how much rubbish we collected and the types of things we found.