Education Sessions
Environmental education is learning ABOUT the environment, completing activities IN the environment and taking action FOR the environment. Much of our education provisions is bespoke, with sessions tailored according to your specific focus and age of students. To get the most out of our sessions we recommended that you complete some initial activities or learning with your students about your chosen topic(s) prior to engaging with our educators. You can find a range of resources under our resources tab.
Below is an example of a few sessions we have run in the past, and you can head to our resources page to find activities that link to these sessions.
Biodiversity
Exploring what lives in your school grounds or local native bush is a great way to inspire and excite your students.
We are able to offer presentations, activities and field trips on a range of biodiversity themes such as invertebrates, trees, fungi and birds, across primary and secondary levels.
There may also be opportunities for your students to participate in native planting projects.
Biosecurity
This includes pest animals and pest plants.
Pest animals are hugely damaging to our native flora and fauna. Not only do they eat both young and adult animals, they compete for the same food sources, whether these are invertebrates, plants or trees. With the introduction of an ambitious plan to rid New Zealand of our most damaging introduced predators by 2050, we encourage schools to explore this topic with your students.
If you are keen to further your inquiry, we offer outdoor activities looking at pest animal tracking and trapping. For example, finding out what pests are living in the school grounds or at home using their footprints and their teeth marks.
Finally, if your school is interested in backyard trapping to remove pests from your school grounds, then we will be able to advise on the best methods and, if available, lend you traps.
Pest plants or weeds threaten our unique biodiversity. There are more pest plants growing in the wild in New Zealand than native plant species. They threaten the long-term survival of some of our native animals by changing or destroying their habitat.
Waiora Stream Study
Waiora Stream Study investigates water quality, aquatic habitats, and the effects of land management on freshwater ecosystems. The programme can be delivered as a facilitated session, or you can borrow the monitoring kit to run your own study. Rotations can include habitat assessment, stream condition monitoring, and identifying what lives in the stream. A full teacher’s guide is included.
The programme is designed for senior primary to intermediate students, but it can be tailored for any age group. Get in touch to discuss the activities you’d like to include.
Enviroscapes
Enviroscapes® is a water catchment model that explores run-off (or non-point source) pollution, which contributes a great deal to the pollution in our waterways. This class-based resource has a range of activities which help students to identify the types of non-point source, or run off, pollution, coming from both urban and rural areas. Students can also discuss ways to mitigate the pollution to keep our waterways healthy. This activity is a great precursor to conducting a Waiora stream study.
Sustainable Coastlines - Litter Intelligence
We hold the Sustainable Coastlines Litter Intelligence Survey Kit that can be borrowed by schools or community groups wanting to take part in the litter data programme.
Litter Intelligence is Aotearoa’s first and only national litter monitoring programme, enabling communities to collect data, gain insights and take action to prevent litter. Developed and launched in 2018 in collaboration with Stats NZ, the Department of Conservation, and with funding from the Ministry for the Environment, the platform provides open, scientifically rigorous litter data from hundreds of survey sites around the country. This data is then able to be used to address the litter challenge long-term by influencing behaviour change around production, consumption and disposal of waste.
Kai Iwi School in Whanganui are committed litter champions of Kai Iwi Beach. Since the beginning of 2025 they now regularly conduct a survey of the beach to monitor for litter and upload their data onto the litter intelligence website adding to the national database.
You can check out the data they found and about the programme at https://litterintelligence.org/