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Testimonials

Freshwater Ecology

Having a variety of reading levels and activities helped the children to participate well. I have Pasifika children who thoroughly enjoyed the trip and participated fully - even forming the questions and talking on the audio conference. It gave us an opportunity to do some learning that was way outside our resources and actual ability to 'be there'. It gave a wider perspective to our thinking about water.

Jane Sutherland from Cornestone Christian 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

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

The experience that my students got was fabulous. They gained skills in manaakitanga, independent learning, and the ability to refine questions through inquiry. All my students, in particular my boys, thoroughly enjoyed the activities  Beforehand, a lot of my students did not understand the magnitude of sustainability but there was lots of information that helped students understand it in the context of freshwater ecology. As a bi lingual class my students enjoyed using the Māori kupu in our word wall, using them in conversations with their peers and asking lots of questions about the Māori kupu in general.

Trina Bennett from Finlayson Park 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

Outstanding programme. Children were able to visit another locality and compare it to our work with DoC on our local river. Added an extra dimension to our Inquiry. Our special needs students enjoyed the visuals and were able to contribute to class discussions.

Julie O'Neill from Opawa School

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

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

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 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

The field trips are informative, exciting and a great learning experience. Relevant to all learners because it used correct language for te reo maori and showed how LEARNZ value te ao maori through the concepts explored. The newsletters were also great, with lots of easy steps.

Nicola Burtenshaw from Longburn School

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

Great engagement in our inquiry topic. Great content in differentiated forms. Connected to the environment and groups involved in community. Experts' content was put into language the students could understand.

Stuart Cooke from Methven School

This type of learning appealed to my Year 6 boys. It's a good way to use ICT in the classroom for learning interesting topics. It can be flexible and self-managed. It was helpful being able to access it online to suit our timetable and good that students could access the information at home.  

Stephanie Johnson from St Joseph's School Timaru

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

Students got to continue to learn about the environment (following on from involvement in the Virtual Great Walks field trip). The detail and facts included in the background pages made things more interesting to read (or listen to!).

Marcia Ferguson from Rosebank School Balclutha

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

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

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

Our Inquiry was Sustainability this term and students really got into the field trip. It was a spectacular way for students to practice the Key competencies and meet people online they would otherwise have no access to.

Karen Blatchford from Tai Tapu School

Wonderfully appropriate. Supported our science focus very well, as well as the key competencies of self management, relating to others (sharing tablets, working together) and texts (reading and responding to the information).

Carolyn Thelning from Weston School

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