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

For my Year 4 class enjoyed the learning experience. The virtual field trip raised their awareness of how special and unique Antarctica is and made them think about being the guardians of the area.
This unit linked with our topic of sustainability and enabled cross curricular learning in a digital context. This type of learning resource helps students to work at their level, irrespective of where they start and their reading ability.
This LEARNZ Antarctica field trip has given me the confidence to continue to integrate digital technology into my programmes. My class were very engaged in their learning and it was well integrated through Literacy, Science and Mathematics.
Real life engagement with scientists on ice was interesting - great for students to see what we had been studying in real life.
The context of this Antarctica learning trip was helpful to discuss the ESS topic (L5): Earth systems. Students learnt lots of new things about Antarctica and sea ice formation, with some good extra teaching material and activities to extend students.
Fantastic links to the science curriculum AOs - lots of learning due high interest and combination of videos and great background information. Learnz is real world and happening at the moment. Where else can you get this sort of access to scientists and researchers?
The LEARNZ virtual journey to Antarctica was great because EOTC is not possible in Antarctica for a school classroom to do for real. The opportunity to hear real scientists talk to the LEARNZ representative, Shelley Hersy, was very valuable and also helped us form some of our science goals.
This is an effective and engaging part of my literacy programme. My Pasifika students, in particular, are much more engaged with a Learnz field trip than other academic activities. Especially relevant in meeting the vision of the NZ Curriculum.
We loved the field trip! Thanks so much for all that you do. It is such an engaging way to connect with various areas of the curriculum.
Students said it was great because it simulated going to Antartica and it was awesome seeing (our ambassador) BuzzBee there. It was easy to set up my programme using Google classroom so students and their families could see what was happening whenever they wanted.
It motivated my top reading group. It was well organised, informative and something different to use as a reading tool/experience.
The field trip supported the development of Key Competencies, and provided up-to-date information relevant to Education for Sustainability.
The idea of virtually going to Antarctic created such a buzz and a HUGE level of engagement. It's great the way LEARNZ leaders connect with students - they present everything in such an accessible way but have high expectations that students can and will be able to understand fairly sophisticated concepts.
It definitely ticked the boxes. A great topic. We enjoyed all that was on offer.
The LEARNZ personnel and experts feel like real friends or students' own personal teacher, which helps to make the learning experiences very potent. They field trips like Antarctica are great and I just love the work you all do to make them interesting and engaging. Thank you.
Provided real meaning and connections to topical subjects like global warming. There was a high level of interest about Antarctica from the students.
The students particularly enjoyed the videos and the quizzes. They also commented on how much they liked how the diaries were written as if they were there. This LEARNZ Antarctica trip fitted in well with the Nature of Science aspects of questioning and using vocabulary that we were focussing on.
We integrated the learning across all curriculum areas, which was easily done. All my students enjoy learning in this way and the background reading was perfect for my Year 4 class.
Listening to someone who was there reinforced how close we are to Antarctica and viewing the videos diaries really focused the students into the whole experience. The readings and activities made students manage their time appropriately.
I run the GATE programme and we do Future Problem Solving so the ecological sustainability was particularly relevant. A great teaching tool which is motivating for students.
It has taken my students to new worlds of understanding, given them purpose and focus to read and write about a 'real-life' topic that is of interest to them.
The trips like Antarctica are fantastic. It enables all children no matter what ethnicity or socioeconomic group to explore the world. My teaching practice has been transformed as LEARNZ allows me to present learning with a digital approach, using multiple computers and devices and guiding students in combination with Google Classroom.
It was great to have people there in real time - it connected the students to the context. It was fantastic where they could type questions to the experts even though they didn't have a speaking role.
The whole field trip has added a sense of authenticity to student learning. This really is a wonderful way to give us invaluable learning experiences - students have been so engaged and have been thinking of their own experiments to test some of the things that they have learnt.
It was a very REAL and engaging focus for a lot of different interest groups. Use of the Audio conferences was a first and was very impactful for the students.