You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Ambassador Māia
Homepage of Get outdoors safely: with maps!
Kia ora,
I'm Māia the kea. My name means bold in Māori. Like most kea I love to give things a go and am often curious and a little mischievous. I am the ambassador that travels all over the place with Shelley the LEARNZ field trip teacher. I love getting out and about on adventures. I love the outdoors so I am looking forward to getting out and about on the Get Outdoors field trip to Wellington.
See you there.
Māia.
Tuesday 17 November
Kia ora,
It was great to get active during Get Outdoors Week. We headed up Matairangi, Mount Victoria and enjoyed amazing views out over Pōneke, Wellington. I was a bit frustrated because I had to walk rather than fly but it gave me time to see all the tracks and check the map to make sure we didn’t get lost.
Tomorrow we are going to find out how a rescue is organised at the Rescue Coordination Centre.
See you there,
Māia.
Wednesday 18 November
Kia ora,
It was a wet and wild day in Wellington today, so we had to stay mostly indoors. Luckily, we had been invited to the Rescue Coordination Centre where we looked around the Operations Room to see how rescues on land, sea and in the air are organised. People at the centre use lots of mapping technology to organise search and rescues. If people use locator beacons, it’s much easier to find them if something goes wrong. It was awesome to see how these people work to organise rescues which save people’s lives. I also met bird of the year kākāpō Linzy from LINZ today and we worked out how to use GPS.
Tomorrow we will meet some of the people involved in carrying out rescues on land.
See you then,
Māia.
Thursday 19 November
Kia ora,
We ended up at the Police Station today, but not because we had been naughty. We wanted to find out about Search and Rescue operations, so we met with Luke and Rob from the SAR team. It was interesting to see how much work they put into their training and see them in action out in the field. We also met Quita the police dog. I must admit that us Kea don’t like dogs much, so I kept my distance. Luckily, Quita was very well behaved!
This field trip has been the perfect way to spend ‘Get Outdoors Week’. It’s been great exploring new places and meeting new people. I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and can now plan your own outdoor adventures.
See you on another field trip soon,
Māia.
Māia is looking forward to the Get Outdoors field trip to Wellington. Image: LEARNZ.
Māia takes in the views from Matairangi, Mount Victoria in Wellington. Image: LEARNZ.
Māia checks out the variety of locator beacons that can be activated if someone gets in trouble in the outdoors. These devices send a signal to the Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington. Image: LEARNZ.
Māia catches up with Linzy from Land Information New Zealand and looks at how GPS works. Image: LEARNZ.
Linzy and Māia meet one of the models used in Search and Rescue training exercises. Image: LEARNZ.