You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Excellent resources, great engagement from the learners and provoked good thinking surrounding our own restoration project. Fully supported the science learning areas of Living World (Ecology L1-6) and Planet Earth & Beyond (Earth Systems L3-4).
The link to Te Reo vocabulary was great. The videos, ability to listen as well as read the texts, the quizzes and diaries were all great. They encouraged me to hand over responsibility for learning more to the children and gave them ownership of the tasks. Some more introverted children shared some great findings from the field trip.
It allowed us to complete learning in technology, ICT, science and maths.
Roads and road safety and public spaces are a part of everyday life, so it was great to think about and talk about how this effects us and how our behaviour effects others, in a meaningful way. I love, as always, the Learnz topics and the framework provided to have some interesting conversations, share ideas, and expand our knowledge in fun and interesting ways.
Thorough integration of curriculum elements. For this field trip, we followed a pattern in class inquiry and core subjects.
This field trip was excellent and a fantastic opportunity to talk to inspiring, knowledgeable and caring experts. My students now have clarity around the direction for their action plans, therefore the field trip was effective, appropriate and supported the Principles, Values, Key Competencies, Learning Areas and Vision of the NZ Curriculum. Being able to re-watch the web conferences with the additional notes and links is really helpful.
It allowed for huge flexibility. Our unit is based around the Place and Environment AOs of the Social Science learning area, and it was perfect. Kids were very engaged and particularly looked forward to the daily videos.
My students love working in pods learning and researching on all the background pages and then seeing the real life videos. To the LEARNZ team thank you for such an awesome resource, that I love using with my students!
We are looking at our local river and the field trip gave us a context in which we could link our reading programme and link it through science. The class was engaged and went onto the images and background pages during independent learning times. Awesome trip - thanks Andrew and team.
Supported our heavy focus on the key competencies and principles as we develop our local curriculum. Interesting, well thought out, engaging, and followed on nicely from other inquiries.
Love the links to tikanga and Maoridom - something that is a focus for us as school right now, but can be hard to do in an authentic way. This field trip helped us to achieve that. Students also hadn't thought of 'mapping' beyond the one on the wall so this opened up a whole new world for them.
I used the background pages with my class, as they fitted really well with my unit plan.
It was great that our students had access to real people; students from other schools and experts. We were most interested in the pepeha sections but used the web conferences (live and replay), the videos, and the activities on the web site.
Prompted me to explore mapping with my class. We mainly used the background material and explored concepts using maps of our own area.
Children made good connections to previous knowledge and we are now using mapping tools online to record where traps are and their catch rate etc. The field trip tied in nicely to our current inquiry about pest management and previous inquiries into the blue duck and kiwi.
This trip created a lot of 'wondering' moments and also helped raise the profile of reo Māori in my class. It really supported cultural diversity, which is something that our school and Kāhui Ako has been focussing on.
Because of the secondary timetable, I found it more useful for me (than my class) as PD on how to include digital ideas into the classroom. We did create a digital map in the last lesson of term so the field trip inspired me to have a go at something new with my class.
This mapping field trip was a great context to explore sustainability and te ao māori.
The option for viewing the videos etc. at a time that does not conflict with other school commitments, is extremely valuable. Contributed to student agency so class members could be self managing, collaborative and use their literacy and numeracy skills in authentic and rich contexts.
The web conferences in particular encouraged my Year 1-8 students to listen carefully to ideas from other schools and the experts, so they could contribute themselves.
It fitted in perfectly with our "Our Place" inquiry with high levels of engagement in this meaningful and authentic activity. Having each learner research and share their cultural heritage and ancestry has been enlightening and empowering. Using the digital tool Tour Builder and Google earth to map their waahi (ancestral journey) incorporated the new strands of the Technology curriculum with learners designing and creating using digital technology, not just consuming.
The students have continued, even after the end of the field trip, to explore their own passions around mapping, e.g. mapping their own whanau story. My Maori students showed full engagement in this trip, especially when listening to the oral stories of the local area. LEARNZ definitely supports my teaching, by providing a wide variety of resources and experts to support the class inquiry learning.
This trip was useful in discussing the topography of New Zealand, prior to guiding the students into thinking about natural disasters as part of our Cause and Effect inquiry. We found the web conferences most helpful.
This trip provided opportunities and learning for my class that we would not have otherwise been able to access.
This trip gave different students a chance to shine and it linked strongly to cultural competencies. LEARNZ helps me link my teaching to what is actually going on for us in New Zealand, and keeps lessons and unit plans real.