Kauri education programme rolls out to school children

A group of students experience the virtual reality session in the school library.

Waikato Regional Council’s award-winning kauri virtual reality experience and education programme is being rolled out to hundreds of children in schools across the Waikato region.

Kauri trees are naturally found in the top half of the North Island, known as the "Kauri lands". The Waikato region has over 94,000 hectares of kauri forests, of which more than 20,000 hectares is old growth kauri forest. These ‘Southern’ kauri forests are vital to the future of kauri, being predominantly free from kauri dieback disease.

Waikato Regional Council used their unique resources – including their Wētā Workshop kauri tree model and virtual reality experience, Kauri Pou Kaitiaki – and to engage with an important audience.

Working closely with the Enviroschools team, Council developed a kauri education programme to educate school children about the the rich natural and cultural significance of our native kauri and how to protect them for future generations.

Since a pilot in 2023, the programme has been delivered to over 900 children across 15 schools in the Waikato region including the Coromandel, Hamilton and near Te Kuiti and Paeroa.

One of the latest schools to benefit from the programme is Ōpoutere School located around 11 km north of Whangamata. The school caters for primary and intermediate-aged children from years 1-8.

Over two days, expert facilitators delivered the programme to about 120 children at the school. Each kauri education session ran for one-and-a-half hours, involving a series of interlinked activities focused on our kauri taonga.

A group of students and their facilitators pose for a photo in a school field with several kauri trees in the background.

‘If we do our part to protect kauri now, we can enjoy them long into the future,’ Breeahn Munns, biosecurity coordinator for the Kauri Protection team, told the Ōpoutere School children in a briefing, which gives students an understanding of kauri, their root systems, kauri dieback disease and what they can do to help stop its spread.

‘You can’t see Phytophthora agathidicida (the pathogen that causes kauri dieback disease) with your eyes, which is why it’s really important to clean your gear of all dirt,’ said Breeahn.

Each of the four activity rotations build on the learnings from the presentation and the other activities. The programmes activities include viewing a scale model of a kauri tree and its root system; using ropes to get an appreciation and understanding of the size of kauri trunks and their enormous root systems; a practical exercise involving cleaining dirt from shoes; and a biodiversity card-based exercise.

‘The whole programme was awesome and the kids were super engaged,’ said Shelby Garratt, a teacher at Ōpoutere School, who noted that the virtual reality experience was one of the standout highlights.

Students were immersed for seven minutes in a 360-degree virtual world illuminating the cultural, spiritual and ecological significance of our kauri trees and forests, whilst practising the desired behaviour change, which is done in a gamified boot cleaning activity.

‘You could tell that the children were like “wow” and that they were really paying attention to what was being said throughout the activities,’ said Shelby.

Having first dirtied sample shoes in trays of soil, the children clean the footwear with brushes and water to simulate what they would do after walking in the bush.

The sessions often get students thinking about how to protect the kauri at their school, which are typically located in playing areas. This is a really rewarding part for facilitators to see and is something that the programme supports and encourages with a schools Kauri Protection Plan.

‘We have received feedback that our messaging in schools is being shared at home which is awesome,’ said Breeahn.

The kauri virtual reality experience has been recognised by the NZ Biosecurity Institute, receiving the institute’s Dave Galloway award last year. Meanwhile, Waikato Regional Council’ s Kauri Protection Programme—which includes the education programme—received the Eagle Technology Local and Central Government Award in this year’s Biosecurity Awards.

Teachers can approach the council or Enviroschools facilitators directly to book the experience for their schools.