You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
This field trip has been the highlight of the year for all the students. Amazing enthusiasm from the whole school.
Great for Nature of Science. Also enviroscience topics. The kids were really interested - we found all the science fascinating and it was delivered in a way that made it understandable for the class. Also just the glimpse into life in the Antarctic.
Engages the students. Interesting material which covers a breadth of issues and topic areas. Students gained an understanding of the Antarctic food web.
My Year 7 & 8 students found the field trip very engaging and effective for many reasons eg. extending knowledge, developing inquiry skills, digital technology. It also covered science and social science well, and variously incorporated the Principles, Values, and Key Competencies of the NZC.
Rather than just researching independently about Antarctica, the students enjoyed having a variety of tools at their fingertips. The mixture of videos, photos, quiz etc kept students interested and being able to listen to the information rather than having to read it is highly beneficial.
My Year 3-4 students found the field trip extremely interesting, particularly as we had an ambassador join Shelley on the trip, too. We used the background pages for our reading programme and used the videos. There was a high degree of curiosity from the students, and their questions were answered at their level.
The students were highly motivated throughout this field trip. A fantastic resource that can be used easily within any classroom setting to support classroom programmes around skills and attitudes we are fostering with our children.
Interactive, engaging and highly motivating. Helps create partnership between home and school as students are extremely keen to share the field trip experiences with their parents.
Very appropriate for year 7/8 students. They absolutely loved being able to look at the resources, especially the photo/video content. It gave maximum opportunity to discuss what they were looking at and learning.
Fantastic links to the science curriculum AOs - lots of learning due high interest and combination of videos and great background information. Learnz is real world and happening at the moment. Where else can you get this sort of access to scientists and researchers?
The audio conversations were brilliantly done along with the accompanying videos, plus questions being typed and answered while online. I have been intrigued and surprised by how much my young students have taken on board during the trip.
Very effective, especially the videos. Fantastic with much of the planning done for the time-poor teacher. This field trip is fully supportive of Principles, Key values and Competencies as well as learning areas of our curriculum, thanks.
Students were highly engaged, especially by the videos and photos of our ambassador. Students who need extra support with literacy really appreciated the easy to read background material.
This field trip was very appropriate for my Year 4 class as we used it under the theme of Kaitiakitanga. I feel the effectiveness (of the virtual field trip) can be gauged by the involvement and the questions asked by the children, and this Antarctica study has really had them enthused and doing independent research of their own. It is fascinating to discover how much knowledge the children take home and discuss with their families.
My class of all boys love the LEARNZ background readings and activities; their non-fiction reading levels have all improved. They like the fact that they can work at their level and at their own pace. They all love science and anything (like LEARNZ) that helps develop their understanding of how our world works.
It motivated my top reading group. It was well organised, informative and something different to use as a reading tool/experience.
This was so engaging for our class. This is a great way to bring science alive in the classroom and it led to so many discussions.
For my Year 4 class enjoyed the learning experience. The virtual field trip raised their awareness of how special and unique Antarctica is and made them think about being the guardians of the area.
Seeing people passionate about their interest is so encouraging for kids. We were focusing on fossils and limestone of North Otago, so it was useful comparing with Waitomo.
This field trip tied in nicely with our Science topic this term. Students were highly engaged throughout the field trip and are highly passionate about using LEARNZ in the classroom.
Fantastic - we were going to Waitomo on our field trip, and the timing and content could NOT have been better. Greatly improved audioconferences - the backchannel improved engagement, and the kids were highly interested in hearing their questions asked over the Internet, and the immediate responses.
I had a careers focus with my Year 7&8 class and I could not have chosen a more effective venue than an airport. The LEARNZ experience cannot be matched for engagement and student enthusiasm.
The students and me learnt a lot more about an airport, what careers are available and how so many people are involved with the running of an international airport. It gave students who have travelled the opportunity to share their personal experiences with their peers, which made it even more realistic.
The audioconferences put our students in contact with other NZ kids - connects them to their peers. Students were fascinated by the videos of behind the scenes at the airport.
Easy to use loads of resources, visual and device friendly, mascot was great connector. My students enjoyed the 4 language options as this included every student except my Kiribati one. Being able to put questions to experts in the live audio conference as well as in the back channel chat was great.