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

They (LEARNZ virtual field trips) are informative and they reinforce what I am teaching. We had watched with real disappointment the Kauri Grove in Cambridge and our local area die in last year's drought.
Ties in so well with the guiding principles - Education for sustainability, Treaty of Waitangi etc. My Year 4 children were engaged and able to relate this field trip to our term concept of Turangawaewae. Content interesting and informative. Well presented as usual by Andrew with passion. Children with different learning styles are well catered for and my special needs children are also keen to engage in this type of online learning.
We live in the north and are surrounded by Kauri trees. Our students are now aware that kauri trees are under threat as they did not know this initially. I feel science is a very important part of the curriculum and want to encourage students to interact with the New Zealand environment. We are now going to visit the local bush and observe our trees.
Students were motivated by the field trip and made gains in reading, research, and critical thinking.
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.
This was a brilliant trip for my class. They gained a sense of guardianship responsibility for kauri. The videos were absolutely wonderful and students loved reading the diary entries also. The field trip enabled me to transport my students to a distant place, at no cost, in order to show them first hand some real NZ based learning. Students feel they know Andrew and Egbert and are keen to do more trips.
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.
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.
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.
The kids really enjoyed it and were well supported on the website, as they we able to navigate to find their way around to answer questions they had generated. I was able to take different aspects for different abilities in the class. We also followed up with a visit in our local area to a native bush stand.
Activities that went with the videos were fantastic.
Photos generated a lot of discussion.
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.
Wonderful guided learning with experts to interact with and the real time learning makes it relevant, engaging and applicable. My class found the level appropriate (they are year 6). The delivery was manageable for all students. It fitted our theme study around NZ bush and our camp in the bush.
We learnt things that were directly related to our topic of kaitiakitanga and sustainability. It is great to have the background information, videos and photographs that support a NZ topic.
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 class had just completed an Earth Science unit and this VFT (Virtual Field Trip) was like the icing on the cake. I am not aware of a more effective and powerful learning medium. The Key Competency of Thinking by constructing questions to put to experts during Audioconferences was most effective.
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.
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.
Totally in line with our Disasters topic. Worked well with the Key Competencies we aligned with our unit. Backchannel was great for the class next door.
The live link up is great. Great to be able to observe, listen to experts at work. Real life context.
It was perfect. Another tool in a teacher's basket of learning activities. It put into a familiar context (we live in the Bay) the material we were learning about. Relevant visuals and they loved the ambassador, as did all our students even the big year 12 students!
This Learnz Geohazards site allowed my students to work at their own pace and helped them to become drivers of their own learning.
The field trip supported both our social sciences and science learning areas. The students loved the real life content and particularly enjoyed the audio conferences. I like the fact that we can revist the fieldtrip resources throughout our learning unit ... which will come in handy when the students need to research a natural disaster that may occur in our area (Nelson) and how to prepare for it.
The field trip introduced children to real scientists, gave them ideas and stimulated curiosity. Students came to realise that science occurs in their own back yard, not just overseas.