"I'll tell you something, I've never seen a group of children work so hard before," Ms Kruger said. The projects were worked on for more than a year outside school time with the students giving up their lunchtimes, weekends and holidays.
The students came up with six projects that would use the rural school's excess space, involve the community and provide teaching opportunities.
Eliza Rockwell, 11, was in charge of planting and harvesting lavender, which has since been made into lavender balm. "Since we are in a rural community we thought it would be good to integrate our rural identity," she said.
Makenna Purvis, 11, was in charge of the school's new beehive and helped find kid-sized bee suits.
Katie Barnes, 10, negotiated with a local farmer to lease 6ha of land on which the school grew maize and sold back to the farmer for a profit of $5000. She also oversaw the 24-tree orchard including 12 types of apple, peach, plum and olive trees.
While the school already had a lot of native bush, it had not been cared for. according to Aroha Snowsill, 11. She organised the tidying of native bush and the planting of new trees.
The students also realised the school was using a lot of resources mowing a bottom paddock which has since been turned into a grazing area for alpacas.
Jasmine Hayes, 10, who was in charge of the project, said the only glitch arose when one of the animals jumped the fence on the first day and ran around the school.
The students developed teaching plans for classes who each have a term taking care of a different project. A lot of the products from the projects, such as the manuka balm and surf wax, will be sold at the school's market day on December 16.
Though the thought of going to the US was very exciting, the students said they still faced the daunting task of raising $35,000 to $40,000 for the trip.
-To help these girls get to the US visit: www.givealittle.co.nz//cause/hukerenuiruralteam.