Nature day sees lessons at arboretum for 160 pupils

Around 160 students from schools across Gisborne and Wairoa came together for a special day of nature-based education at Eastwoodhill Arboretum. 

The “Mega Event” was part of a programme of education provided by The Aurora Education Foundation with funding from the Ministry of Education. 

The focus was on giving children the opportunity to connect with nature, learn new things and have fun away from the school environment. 

“We wanted to create a special day where the children could put their worries behind them and have some fun, make new friends and live in the moment,” Aurora Education Foundation executive director Sunny Bush said. 

The foundation’s mission is to promote young leaders identified by schools as having unique gifts, special talents and high potential in a wide range of curriculum areas. 

Aurora provides a high-performance gifted education programme with quality extension opportunities to accelerate children’s learning and bolster wellbeing in the Tairāwhiti-Wairoa region. 

The Eastwoodhill event aimed to cast the net wider than usual to include and support neurodiverse children who would benefit from a fun, activity-filled day in nature. 

Principals from 25 schools, including smaller rural schools like Rere School and Ngātapa, selected up to seven students from Years 5 to 8. 

Students were split into groups based on their special talents and areas of interest and then took part in workshops and activities. 

“We wanted to provide an exciting and highly energetic programme which was wide-ranging with holistic focus areas to support healthy wellbeing,” Bush said. 

Activities on the day included a guided nature walk where students got to explore the arboretum and learn about the importance of protecting and propagating the many species of trees that grow there. 

They also discussed the concept of kaitiakitanga and custodianship. Maxwell Matenga introduced a Mātauranga Māori component where children learned and recited the parts of the tree in Māori. 

Specialist facilitators Rebecca Trafford and Alice Kibble took a creative writing workshop where students were encouraged to use their imagination and vocabulary to write poetry inspired by their surroundings. 

“It was great to see such a wide mix of children from Wairoa to our rural schools and city schools, too,” Trafford said. 

“I overheard one of the kids saying ‘I’ve made new friends’, which is really what it is all about. They started off quite reserved but by the end were brainstorming and sharing ideas. They really started to play with the language techniques and put the poetic devices into action.” 

The group will meet again next month to further develop their ideas and make them into poems. 

Eastwoodhill artist in-residence Jo Cringle taught students how to create pigment by grinding local rocks and then binding it to make paint in a special art workshop. 

After their morning of workshops, the students were excited to do the Find and Go Seek Challenge, which involved map reading and navigation skills while promoting teamwork and strategy. Groups of energetic students ran from one clue to the next, interacting with nature and learning as they went. 

Once they had burned off plenty of energy, they returned to the centre for a barbecue lunch. 

● Aurora has several more educational events coming up. The next is at Touchstone Garden Centre. It will continue the environmental focus with children planting pots of spring blooms to brighten the lives of those in the community.