You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Teacher testimonials
Marine Mammals
The field trip was a great way to hook the class into our Te Moana inquiry and the children loved it! LEARNZ is a super learning tool that links well in obvious and explicit ways to many aspects of the NZ Curriculum.
I like the LEARNZ Inquiry approach, how the students read (or listen to) all the background information first and then formulate their own questions.
Great to connect with others in a real world context.
This topic of this virtual field trip study supports our values of kaitiakitanga. Very appropriate, being a school of students who are sea people, and an interesting form of learning for isolated schools like ours.
We are learning about sustainability and this was a good trip to take.
Motivating, engaging, the short video clips hold student interest and provide plenty of scope for discussion. Well supported with activities, both paper and digital.
It was really well set up with appropriate material for classroom writing and got all of my students excited about marine mammals.
It has given my predominantly Pasifika students an invaluable and accessible EOTC experience that would normally be beyond our ability to provide in real time. Oral recordings made it very accessible and having ambassador on board increased engagement further.
I felt the field trip was well done and very engaging. It supported the key competencies very well and there was a lot of thinking, cooperative learning and activities that required a lot of self-management and participation by the students.
Every time I used the support area I was able to find what I needed. The virtual field trip was very appropriate - I had to differentiate content for my littlies but it was very usable.
The field trip had a place in all areas of the NZ curriculum e.g covered reading, writing, geography, mathematics, art. Students were able to make connections to their own personal experiences.
It tied in perfectly with our focus on Toiora te Moana. Supports strongly our values at Merrin - Kaitiakitanga - guardianship especially.
Making the resources very NZ based and knowing other students were also doing it around the country was motivating for many. Having the correct pronunciation of words (Māori and English) available was valuable for the teacher, as was allowing the lower readers to listen to the text.
Integrated perfectly with our current Year 6 Living World topic about life cycles and threats to NZ marine species. Resources are fantastic! Excellent for sustainability and future focus learning.
The children enjoyed the focus on marine mammals and the field trip was a very effective, engaging way of learning. Supported the overall vision of the NZC to become confident, connected life-long learners along with Values around Community Engagement and Future Focus. Supported the Learning Areas of Social Science, Science.
Game 3, "Where have all the dolphins gone?", was so successful that we've played it with a younger class and with the new entrants, and also with the pre-school over the road! The children got a really thorough understanding of this topic through the Virtual Field trip, which tied in perfectly with our whole school topic of "The Ocean".
Met our objectives for inquiry in the social sciences and science but also gave lots of opportunities for literacy. This experience also allowed the students to feel connected, to learn new things and to take responsibility for their own learning.
The children were particularly engaged with the videos, which were easily accessible and generated a lot of group discussion. The videos were a great addition to other images, written texts and resources that we used.
It engaged the children in a different way; more authentic learning. Got students thinking about their role in our future world and how they could participate and contribute.
Fitted in well with Sea Week and had good information that suited our context for Year 9. Also provided our students of various ethnicity a good opportunity to learn associated Māori vocabulary.
The LEARNZ field trips are a fantastic way to expose students to learning that they may not otherwise have, at places they wouldn't normally go to, while giving them the opportunity to get information from experts.
Great for motivating students, relevant and NZ based. Made me more open to interactive/web conferences/real time learning.
It was related to a topic the students could branch out into/feel passionate about and the resources were suited and adaptable to our year 7 class. Engaging with an expert models the quest for knowledge and students take it more seriously/engage more when they know the expert has dedicated their life to their chosen field.
It was great to have a topic that linked into Sea Week. It clearly linked to the curriculum for social science, science, literacy, and Te Reo Māori. As a digital classroom, it was fantastic to be able to do our work through the website and access it from home so that learning could be shared with whanau.
It encouraged students to use a range of communication skills and certainly helped us to target the Living World science curriculum.