A successful collaboration of environmental programmes

Tauhara Primary School is a school in Taupo focusing which focused on water for one term. They have taken four separate education opportunities and integrated them to create a school wide inquiry learning unit.

  • The four opportunities that Tauhara Primary School is using are:
  • A Community Based Language Initiative from Hei Ara Kokiri the Education Arm of the Tuwharetoa Trust Board
  • Enviroschools Facilitated Programme
  • National Waterways Project
  • National Trout Centre’s Stormwater Programme

The school has recognised the benefits from using these different opportunities together to complement each other and support a goal of building aroha for this area in the children. Children who love their place and recognise why it is special are more likely to look after their special place.

The umbrella over the Tauhara Primary water unit is the book “Te Ahi Tamou” (The Covered Fires). These are the ancestral legends of Tuwharetoa rewritten and retold by Tuwharetoa elders in a way that will especially interest children. This is part of a Community Based Initiative created through Hei Ara Kokiri. The key to the programme is that it is presented to the children as more than just stories. It is used to represent the values and attitudes of what makes this area special by helping the children understand what the mountains, lakes and rivers mean to the people of Tuwharetoa. The stories will help foster the desire in the children to become the guardians of our mountains, lakes and rivers.

Tauhara Primary School is in the second year of the Enviroschools Facilitated Programme. The Enviroschools Facilitated Programme has five Guiding Principles: Sustainable Communities, Environmental Education, Genuine Student Participation, Maori Perspectives and Respect for the Diversity of People and Cultures. The Enviroschools Kaupapa is “Enviroschools have a sense of place, Enviroschools are participatory and Enviroschools have a sense of purpose”. Enviroschools encourage the development of partnerships between schools and a range of other community members.

For the first 3 years of being an Enviroschool, the school is supported by a facilitator. In Taupo, the Enviroschools facilitator is funded by TREET (Taupo Regional Environmental Education Trust).

In preparation for the water unit, Tauhara Primary School teachers have worked with their facilitator exploring the activities from the Healthy Water part of the Enviroschools Toolkit. These activities are going to be used throughout the unit as part of an action learning cycle. The activities will promote the Enviroschools Kaupapa, which links strongly to the aims and/or kaupapa of the other three education programmes.

The National Trout Centre, in conjunction with the Taupo District Council, has focussed this year on providing stormwater education to schools in the Taupo-Turangi area. Classes visit the centre for a day and learn about the stormwater system and the effects of stormwater on water quality and the organisms that live in the water. Students become aware of the stormwater drains and what should and shouldn’t go down them. This trip is supported by activities in a teacher’s kit provided by the National Trout Centre. Together with the Enviroschools Toolkit and Te Ahi Tamou, the teachers at Tauhara Primary School feel they have plenty of resources and activities to make a unit to meet the needs of their particular classes.

After the trip to the National Trout Centre students are often curious as to the quality of the water they live by and swim in. This is where the National Waterways Project steps in to complement the learning. In anticipation of this curiosity, every class at Tauhara was scheduled for a NWP field trip. Different waterways will be visited by classes within each syndicate. Students will share the data from their class with other classes in their syndicate and then use the shared data to compare the quality of water in the different areas.

As part of the unit, children will be encouraged to make decisions and take some action for a local waterway. The Enviroschools and National Waterways Project facilitator will provide teachers with some assistance for this as students taking action is the most important part of environmental education.

Teachers at Tauhara Primary have spent many hours putting together this fantastic unit of learning. Several days have been spent on professional development with each of these four programmes. I have been thrilled to be part of this and am very excited to watch their progress.

Sarah Painter
NWP Facilitator/Enviroschools Facilitator