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

My class always enjoys the Learnz Field Trips, regardless of the trip we enrol in. The LEARNZ teachers are so enthusiastic, it really teaches the children things that I can't.
It is visual, relevant, easy to access, and makes good use of technology to be virtually there. Very relevant and topical in Northland.
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.
Set at a great level for year 7 and 8 students. A lot of the planning has been organised for you. Great learning experience. Majority of students loved the topic and the quality of the work completed was outstanding.
It illustrated clearly community engagement, ecological sustainability, participating and contributing. Students were interested. It also helped in the Nature of Science ... seeing how the community can work with the scientists on an issue.
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.
The kids get really engaged with what they are learning about. Because it is real the kids really respond to it. We can make links to what is happening around our area, also.
Related to our personal environment, local issues, and experiences at camp. Very relevant to developing a MLE and BYOD environment. Combined literacy, science, social science. Andrew (the LEARNZ Teacher) was friendly, engaging, and related well to students and experts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We used this field trip to help us cover our Deep Learning Topic of Past and Present. it was very helpful in many aspects as we also wanted a science based focus in this area. The activities and background pages were useful for self management.
Students gained through the Science strand - Nature of Science - How scientists work.
Great material, age appropriate, to generate interest and questions. Great engagement. Students gained knowledge of volcanoes and geothermal activity, connected to wider New Zealand.
My class will be studying the 1931 Napier Earthquake, so the background pages and activities were very useful for the Natural processes aspect. Other supplementary information was interesting and slighty connected to our topic. My class use online activities to supplement their book class work. A virtual learning experience is very engaging for students. It is also useful for them to revisit the recorded trip when revising for the exam. My students don't get many opportunities to go on actual field trips, this is the next best thing. Relevant.
Great content and contexts. A novel approach and a way to bring other voice into my classroom that has great authenticity. Fits well with the specific Learning Objectives for the Disaster unit taught in the Social Studies curriculum.
A good introductory approach for Extreme Natural Events (for Level 1 Geography). Encompasses a different approach. I rate it. It gathered interest and allowed for better retention of some of the key points than just class notes and activities would provide.
A neat and different way to engage kids.
The field trip helped to make the content very relevant and allowed the students to feel like they were getting first hand experience.
The lessons and resources targeted the students learning needs while challenging their thinking. It supported my kids' knowledge, future learners, sharing of information and becoming 21st century learners ... connected learners.
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.