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Testimonials

Freshwater Ecology

It is real time, here and now as well as New Zealand info and presenters which all makes it more authentic learning for children. The field trips offer current visual, aural and authentic learning for children, without a huge amount of time and preparation on the teachers part. The teacher can learn along side the children.  It's easy to access, well planned and organised and encourages a passion for our beautiful country.

Anneke Esselbrugge from Rukuhia School

We particularly enjoy the videos and questions, as they are effective at any time. Followed on from our water study and reinforced our learning around water ecosystems. The field trips have relevance even when they don't exactly fit a planned topic. I am hooked!

Maureen Robertson from Verran Primary School

Students who watched videos were motivated to set up a fresh water tank at school. Good science, reinforcing concepts of food webs and freshwater ecosystems.

Vanessa Burrell from Haeata Community Campus

Supports the school curriculum in innovative ways. We live in this area and students recognised many visual features and people interviewed. It reinforced classroom learnings as it linked to this term's curriculum studies.

Helen Gibson from Hilltop School

Our students loved being able to manage their own learning from the website and being introduced to new experiences such as the audio conferences. Great for the learners who have difficulties with literacy - easy background and listening features are excellent for them.

Susan Andrews from Cashmere Primary School

This method of learning was highly suited to a select group of my Year 9  students as it allowed them to self-manage, focus on learning, and at a later stage 'practice' through an EOTC field trip to a local freshwater stream. Excellent and most effective.

Ira Seitzer from Kamo High School

They are so relevant to the children who are at an impressionable age. They are now telling others what we should all be doing re health of our water sources.  They were so focussed upon the videos and the short reading tasks held their attention and were relevant to what we were doing. The cultural component was relevant to all children, not specifically to just Maori or Pasifika ones. It is such a great resource for teachers and students alike.

Valerie Moratti from Havelock North Intermediate

It is a fun and educational way for the students to learn. It gives the opportunity for students to view places they may never get the opportunity to see.

Wendy Gibson-Chance from Opawa School

It gave a real context for elaborating on the aqueous chemistry we are studying. It gave a chance to explore a 'real world' environment from the comfort of our classroom, without spending the time and resources to commit to a full-blown field trip.

Paul Millican from St Margaret's College

My class is very multi-cultural and has a varied spread of ability. The field trip allowed an inclusive learning programme to take place where every student felt success! All students were highly engaged and motivated ... I cannot emphasise this enough as the field trip created such a buzz of excitement, they could hardly wait to see what was happening within the field trip every day. As a teacher it was an exhilarating experience to see every student caught up in the learning. The knowledge the students gained from the field trip developed critical thinking skills. Everything is available on the LEARNZ website - it's a wonderful resource that creates real life science experiences for students. As a teacher it is easy to navigate the website and use the resources available. It also enables me as a teacher to creatively adapt resources/ knowledge for the students in my class.

Katrina Laurie from Clifton Terrace Model School

We were teaching about NZ Rivers as a module class, combining Science and Social Studies, so it fitted the achievement objectives perfectly for our subject areas. Awesome!

Sarah Barge from Mountainview High School

First time we tried a field trip - so much potential - it was great. We were learning together. Great timing for Te Wiki o Te Reo - Maori place names.

Deborah Mitchell from Waioneke School

We use material from completed field trips (Freshwater Ecology and Whio) on school camp at Tongaririo which provides excellent, authentic, high motivation support for our Year 7 students and relates well to our similar interets in Taranaki. I certainly appreciate the quality of the online resources that LEARNZ have produced. Thanks very much to the LEARNZ team.

Andrew McAllister from Sacred Heart Girls Collge New Plymouth

Wetland Biodiversity

Students have learned so much and they have become overnight advocates for wetlands. The LEARNZ programme really enhanced the pronunciation of Maori place names, values and importance of early Maori traditions to our lives today.

Joanne Phillips from Te Mata School Havelock North

Fitted in very well with our Term School focus of Kaitiaki and Science focus of Living World. Preparing for the audio conference extended our students thinking and created a whole new level of class discussions and understanding.

Richard Kerr from Avondale Intermediate

Set at the perfect level for My Class of year 7/8 students. They took in so much information! There are lots of different ways the students are engaged through text, video, listening, and interacting. It was good to have the Māori aspects included in the Wetlands study.

Amy Clode from Grantlea Downs School

We were studying a local waterway and were able to compare the bio-diversity between our waterway in the Far North with a fresh waterway in the South Island. The students were motivated to research their topic, find out more about their own community and particularly enjoy the audio conference and following their ambassador.

Diane Henderson from Ohaeawai School

Easy to use and great resources. The 2 levels of background pages were appropriate. Short videos with questions meant students didn't get bored.

Abbey Reith from Timaru Boys' High School

The answers were in-depth from the three experts for the areas that we are investigating. An easy way to conduct a field trip. Also very accessible for those with learning challenges.  

Ross Nicholson from Rangiora New Life School

Watching the students get excited about their role (we were a speaking school, which was a breeze) and then watching them make connections in their learning, has been a real highlight. They built connections with the area the trip took us to and linked it to our local community and loved connecting what they were reading and hearing with specific people.

Cheryl Dunick from Spring Creek School

Many of my students found the Māori Tikanga section the most interesting. I also liked that the learning was rewindable and allowed for student agency. The opportunity to experience a virtual field trip really excited the children and motivated them to want to find out more, as it provided a meaningful and authentic learning context that included SOLO and built on our own 'Freshwater Frolicking' field trip to The Groynes.

Anna Wright from Templeton School

I feel it covered all areas of the key competencies - I used it to foster new learning relationships within our class, and it was an excellent tool to draw out my innovative thinkers. Due to the video nature of this field trip, the students were very engaged.

Kathryn Rayson from Brooklyn School Motueka

I used this trip as part of my reading programme. Using ICT helped the children who were more visual learners. It enabled the children (Year 4-6) to use and improve their reading strategies across the curriculum. It motivated the children in their learning and was enjoyable for them. It put learning into an authentic context and gave the students easy access to experts who could extend their understanding.

Katryn Russell from Gore Main School

We enjoyed the audio conferences - the children who were involved in them will never forget that experience. This was the first time I have been on a virtual field trip and was pleasantly surprised at how much 5 year olds were able to get from it. Having Percy the Pukeko go as our ambassador helped the 5 year olds follow along. There was also lots of discussion to and fro between the children and parents.

Deborah Lamont from Methven School

The quality of resources is exemplary. Being able to access audio to support the readings is crucial for a number of learners in my class. The field trip met all of the learning intentions outlined by the LEARNZ overview and opened new lines of discussion and knowledge for all students.

Beverley Kemp from Karoro School

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