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

Love the fieldtrips as a compliment or stand alone to my programme. Students engaged, differentiated material, connections to things Maori, I could work on my own or with a group.
Fitted in very well with our non-fiction reading strategies and gave information that we weren't aware of. Also topical with the news broadcast about Coromandel.
My students enjoyed it and learnt so much. They were inspired and did their own projects on kauri dieback. They learnt to do inquiry learning. They enjoyed the videos and doing the activities to test their knowledge.
Students were motivated by the field trip and made gains in reading, research, and critical thinking.
My students from this field trip are now very connected to kauri, that four weeks ago was just another native tree. Very powerful to have online learning with experts. Made a national taonga come alive and made kauri dieback real, relevant and contextual. Brings in elements of Nature of Science and the Social Science curriculum.
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.
Photos generated a lot of discussion.
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.
We found it an effective way to learn. It focussed us on our work and was more interesting than just picking up a book. We would use LEARNZ again because we get to learn more about what's outside of our local community.
It is a highly motivating tool for learning. Children were highly engaged about kauri and continue to have discussions about their learning. Saves me as a teacher a lot of time as almost all of the planning and preparing is done for me. Great to be able to "call on the expert" from my classroom. Makes learning very accessible.
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.
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.
Engaging and relevant. My tamariki loved learning about the kauri. The field trip allowed them to engage with and utilise the learning we were doing in the classroom.
It has benefited all akonga (that includes me). We knew nothing about kauri dieback disease until this field trip. Really relevant to us in Northland.
We linked this topic to our class Māori studies so the Māori children felt the significance of the Kauri to all. The field trip inspired the class, expert on topic made class listen more, audio conferening was a new skill and helped their questioning skills. Class logged on at home to look at resources. Thought ambassador traveling with you was fun. Keen to read next diary.
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.
Hearing from experts is fantastic from a multi-layer perspective - from learning about future careers (scientists, DOC rangers, visitor centre staff) to the significance of the kauri to NZ was excellent. The (bilingual class) children really enjoyed hearing guest speakers present in Te Reo, present their mihi and hear first hand how important the kauri was and is to them.
Children really enjoyed learning about kauri dieback. We participated in all three web conferences and I am pleasantly suprised at how much the children learned. The field trip links well to the Key Competencies as well as our school values, and was inclusive of all cultures.
Linked through te reo me nga tikanga Maori - caring for our environment. Redwood Forest is in our area so able to connect to it through this field trip. Related to the NZ Curriculum - Community engagement, Cultural diversity, Future focus and the Vision - Confident, Connected, Informed, Contribuors.
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.
Fun, engaging, easy to use once you get your head around it all, kids love it, lots of different technology options. Some great info to challenge gifted and talented learners. Great to see the inclusion of Maori vocab.
It was a really good way for students to learn about NZ and what's happening currently and in a manner that they could choose how they participated; some were more independent and others more supported.
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.
It brings things alive for the kids, as many are visual learners. Fabulous to learn from experts. It covered participating and contributing beautifully, and we also connected it to "Understanding about Science".