Conservation Week

"Conservation Week is from 7-14 September 2008 and the theme is Meet the Locals, Tutakitia te Iwi Kainga.

To celebrate Conservation Week, the Department of Conservation will present a one hour virtual lesson each day from 8-12 September. The virtual lessons will help your students understand the native animals and plants, people and places that are unique to New Zealand.

You can also use DOC's Conservation Week education units to teach your students about conservation. Unit one is for years 1 - 4 and unit two is for years 5 - 8. Visit www.conservationweek.org.nz to download the activities for each unit."

Matapu School made the most of Conservation Week through the support of TaraNet and Telecom School Zone. They were able to borrow a spare set of VC gear from us and Telecom SchoolZone kindly sponsored an upgrade to their circuit to enable the connectivity required for video conferencing.

Here the students are talking to DOC education officer, Sarah Bond, from Westland about Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks)& the Glaciers. They also joined conversations during the week with DOC officers in Dunedin & Wellington and learnt about skinks & geckos and wetas. The VCs were the buzz of the school this week amongst students & their families.
Check out their blogspot.

Our local DOC education officer was invited to join us for these VCs but was too busy himself in schools for Conservation Week. Definitely an opportunity in the future for TaraNet to work with DOC and have  some virtual field trips coming out of Taranaki to the rest of NZ.

Matapu School have their VC gear till the end of this term - contact them if you would like to connect your classes through VC.