You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand

Engaging and can be tailored to the specific needs of a small group of students. Uses all of the Key Competencies. Enabled students to self regulate their learning.
It gave them the sense of being there, and the children were motivated and empowered to make a difference. The children loved watching the videos, and it made the whole learning process more authentic.
Activities that went with the videos were fantastic.
Fabulous e-learning experience! Very appropriate to our Inquiry theme of Survival. Very effectively presented. Children really enjoyed the videos and questions that were included which helped them focus on key ideas. Enthusiasm overflowed into homework! Love the idea of having background notes read so children of all levels can listen and learn. Really liked the integration of Te Reo. Can be used by a range of learning levels in a variety of ways.
Linking a community issue with young adults (in this way with LEARNZ), has been empowering for the students. They are able to contribute to conversations outside the classroom using science and cultural based knowledge.
As an Enviro school it is wonderful to be interfacing with experts in the field on real issues in real time. Some of my students go onto Learnz to explore further as additional home learning. Great to hear them educating their parents about what's happening to our mighty taonga, Kauri. LEARNZ is the most marvellous educational resource for NZ teachers. This is my 14th year with Learnz and I get great great support if I need it. The staff are truly amazing at every level.
I used a lot of independent learning time using the background pages which promoted managing self. Also promotes community engagement, future focused thinking. It is well integrated across the curriculum and supports a range of learning types.
The virtual field trip worked well for my mixed ability y9 science class. It engaged the students and it was relevant to the curriculum. The class enjoyed the wide range of activities. One of my students is a boarder, who has iwi connections, with the far north and kauri forests - the kauri are taonga to her iwi. She was very engaged in this unit of work.
I like that we can do the work live, or delay it to suit our needs, and either way not miss out on any of the content. It helped the children to further understand the need to value our natural environment and how easy it is for us to lose a taonga through lack of awareness or willingness to contribute. This topic also increased their cultural awareness.
My 31 mixed-ability children were completely engaged in our study. It was such an authentic context for us, as we are a silver enviroschool and we have three kauri at our school that we are learning to protect. Was great for the children to see real science in action; they were very interested in the laboratory work.
Easy to implement and a wide variety of resources to choose from. We made a kauri forest in our class with tracks and did some science experiments. Being hands on the students really enjoyed the new learning and have retained the information well.
Kauri is one of our taonga, and this field trip supported our role as tangata whenua and kaitiaki. A great resource and easy to use with the class who learnt so much about the kauri and the disease affecting it.
We are in a reasonably remote area and it is great that we can interact with other schools. The Web Quest was fantastic for a range of abilities. LEARNZ is wonderful for those students who learn in different ways e.g. listening (and they can refer back to recordings to check information). We are now interested in "adopting" a local reseve and planting some natives, including kauri.
There is so much in a LEARNZ field trip that it is possible to pick and choose what is most suitable for each class. There is so much motivating stuff to choose from for supporting reading, writing, inquiry, oral language, etc. I like the way that Te Reo is incorporated - this really supports Te Reo in my class.
Great that kauri dieback was in the news, while we were studying it on the virtual field trip. Good integration with Literacy, Te Reo, Key Competencies, Science, and Environmental Education. Wide range of topics, relevant, real life and happening now.
Owing to time constraints with other curriculum areas, I sadly did not get an opportunity to use this wonderful resource with my class. I will be using it retrospectively however.
Extremely valid topic for our students, given our locality. Having experts is powerful. The students enjoyed the virtual learning environment and gained skills in cooperation and collaboration. The opportunities to actually be in many of these places is too cost prohibitive, so this provides an authentic learning environment.
Learnz field trips allow the students to develop all of the key competencies, principals and values of the NZ curriculum, and complements an innovative learning environment. This Geohazards field trip was very relevant and at an appropriate level for our year 7 and 8 students.
Very appropriate for my multi level and age class. Well supported. The field trip enabled learners to gain knowledge in aspects of geology which they then used in writing and oral language. Students were highly engaged. Excellent resource!
Great material, age appropriate, to generate interest and questions. Great engagement. Students gained knowledge of volcanoes and geothermal activity, connected to wider New Zealand.
Childern learnt a lot about geohazards in NZ, other than just earthquakes. So easy to incorporate into the programme; can 'take' children to parts of NZ that we are too far away from; can access any time after the trip begins; has good range of material that engages children eg photos and videos and background pages...
The students now have an increased sense of responsibility and citizenship regarding Geohazards, especially as I was able to completely integrate the learning into my reading and writing programme. The resources are amazing and so perfect because they are about N.Z. and show how scientists work.
The values of respecting one another by listening to each other was important (and able to be reinforced by the field trip context). Applying the principle of learning to learn independently and collaborating information in groups proved to be an asset for managing self and relating to others.
This field trip supported the "Future Focus" principle for my group of Year 6 students, as they were exposed to aspects of the reality of living in a small country that lies on the junction of two tectonic plates. They developed their understanding by making 3D models.
My class were hooked and the videos were great as they helped my kids understand geohazards better (visual). The class are now planning their next steps 'how to prepare'. I will use LEARNZ again as it provides interesting topics that affect my class and ensures they develop their own thinking/questions to explore (what now? what next?). Also oportunities for research, reading and exploring non fiction texts, science case and effect.