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

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.
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!
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.
The children are completely enthralled with taking a virtual trip in their own back yard - they have taken their learning home and are working on informing others of their new knowledge. We are a Year 4 class so at the earlier stage of the Learnz system but it was really easy for the kids to get to grips with. It prompted much learned conversation and interaction from the children, excellent. Each of the Key Competencies was well covered.
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.
Because it was so interactive the children were 'hooked in' from the beginning. Listening comprehension was made to be fun as it was learning they were interested in. It covered everything we wanted to know and what we were learning about.
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.
Tied into the 1.3 Geography Sustainability of tourism in Tongariro National Park. The videos gave great insight into the ecology of the area and how this ties in with all other things.
We are planting our local waterway so this field trip helped the students understand why and how and where and when. "Wai Care?" was our focus for the term - used this field trip extensively.
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.
Highly relevant to the students who self-regulated, worked collaboratively, and applied learnings locally. The multiliteracy approach is very engaging.
Students were captivated by this context. An outstanding resource to facilitate effective learning.
Students gained an appreciation of the ‘bigger picture’, of how clean water or polluted water affects so many things. Students really enjoyed it - it was aimed at their level.
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.
The trips are well planned and resourced - especially with the use of field experts, and provide a wealth of material students can use to aid their studies. The multi-level pitch of these field trips makes them suitable for a range of ability levels, and they can be self-paced.
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.
The videos make it easy for all students to access and understand what is happening. Material was accessible for different learning styles. Students really enjoyed it, they were able to ask questions and get answers, it encouraged deeper critical thinking and students worked cooperatively to learn.
Thank you, this was fantastic for my class. It worked well with our topic. Children were able to undertake this independently and were able to answer the questions after watching the videos.
Student engagement in LEARNZ field trips is always high - they had also recently visited a local wetland. The knowledge students gain from listening to experts, developing questions, reading and viewing the videos and diaries is compelling learning! Highly motivating for students and teacher workload is reduced!
Key competencies were all addressed through the use of this field trip and it was easy use the material to differentiate for different learners. The LEARNZ trips are motivating for students and supporting for teachers. They are broad enough to use as the basis for many Inquiry topics and versatile enough to use over a long or short period.
We used it as part of immersion for starting off on our journey of restoring a Wetland. It prompted questions, wonderings and enhanced their interest. Being able to send along an Ambassador was fantastic as it helped the younger members of our Wetlands group relate to what was happening.
Students valued the inclusion of speakers who related the land and resources to an earlier style of living on the land by Maori, in pre-European times.
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.
It provided further background for our ecology unit and class trip work. The field trip was appropriate for my class studying the wetland biome in New Zealand and we would use more of the resources next time, but this was a good beginning, looking at the videos and the photos.
Love the SOLO Taxonomy integration - that is the kind of thing we love! Great model for us of how to use such tools. The field trip was part of our Wonderful Wetlands term focus. We also went for an afternoon to Travis Wetlands in Christchurch. Good contrast of virtual and hands on. LEARNZ gives access to environments and experts that are pure quality.