You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Teacher testimonials
Sustainable Seas
It was perfect for our purposes. I'm looking forward to the next one!
It has given me a fantastic resource to use in the classroom to motivate and engage the students. It was perfect timing for Sea Week and it had the students participating and contributing, thinking, relating to others and making connections.
Complements classroom programmes really well. Useful for the strands in SST on Place & Environment and Continuity and Change. The trip also supported the future focus and sustainability concepts found in the front of the NZC.
The children really loved the field trip. They could relate lots of the content to our local area. We used the field trip as a supplement for our science programme in the classroom.
It has provided authentic and real contexts for teaching and learning and really engages students. It tied in with what we had been learning around Sea Week and covered all the key competencies as well as many learning areas such as Science, Health, Reading, and Oral Language.
Encouraged teaching and learning about sustainability. Very informative for students and teachers alike. I used the audio in background pages to support multi level reading in my class.
Great for literacy, using computers in a different way, introduced science thinking and specific vocabualary in Maori and English. It was effective in the sense that it gave me a framework to work within and draw ideas from, as the material was there to guide me.
This was amazing. My students could relate to it and it introduced some excellent topics such as food chains and ecosystems. My students gained a deep understanding of how fragile an ecosysytem is and that all ecosystems are under both natural and human threats.
I appreciate the support these field trips give to my broader teaching programme and the fact they are so accessible. Thank-you!
Many areas of the curriculum were covered for me during this field trip. Having the option for the children to listen to the text being read is really helpful, as it gives all children the same opportunity to access the information. The children have learnt a lot and we are now applying this knowledge in our follow up activities.
Spirit of Adventure
The differentiated text pages and supporting photographs and videos ensured all the students had success in their learning. Students absolutely loved participating in the live webinar - the writing they produced after it was inspiring and many students reflected it was the best writing they had ever done.
The children were really engaged and being able to ask an expert made them feel like they were really on board the Spirit of New Zealand. I particularly found the easy readings great for my Year 4-5 class and used them as the reading programme. Totally satisfied with all that was offered!
We used this field trip to support our learning on hauora/wellbeing and as part of our work looking at respect, responsibility, and community participation. It also linked in with our work on Growth Mindset and goal setting.
This field trip enabled my students to explore diversity, excellence - aiming high and giving things a go and themes of working together to achieve goals. Really helped in developing a great classroom culture.
Stimulated lots of conversations about participating and contributing, managing self and taking risks. Also how people had to work together and support each other to achieve their goals.
The field trip certainly connected my students with the NZC. It was an authentic context for children to be involved in, covering all the key competencies, learning areas etc.
Encouraged students to use and manipulate technology devices to complement their learning. Especially great for the boys. Enhanced our whole school thematic topic. I look forward to the next field trip. Thank you Learnz.
Waterview Connection
High engagement in the elements presented. Great stimulation for discussion and further investigation. A powerful extension to our EOTC programme.
Really got us thinking about cars, traffic, air polution (in the tunnels) and safe alternatives like cycling. Very engaging and relevant material, presented well.
People and Water
The LEARNZ delivery method made it easier to work alongside students with their learning rather than in front of them. Students have been engaged and motivated to ask questions and wonder about things.
Wetland Biodiversity
Ability to have contact with scientists and other experts provides an authentic learning experience. We were able to learn about other wetlands and compare them to our local wetlands. Great background information and resources. Thank you!
Used to support digital devices in science at high school and an opportunity to experience the South Island. Some videos included Maori content - used as a role model for students. Pronunciation of Maori place names helped me as a teacher, as I try to improve and utilise Te Reo in the science class.
Marine Mammals
Fitted nicely into science. Authentic contexts. High level of engagement. Loved the Maori song and actions.
I love the links to Te Reo and the culture of the Maori people, particularly things like kaitiaki and karakias. Thank you.
I use this extensively in my reading programme - high interest content. The children love the interactives which also shows me how carefully the children have read the text.
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.