A TREEmendous Day for Karetu School

Northland based Karetu Primary School have a passion for exploring their local, natural environment, and are starting a scientific project that records and logs all the organisms that can be found on their school grounds.

As part of the 2021 TREEmendous programme, an initiative from the Mazda Foundation, Karetu Primary School – together with Ruud Kleinpaste will develop a programme to connect students with the biodiversity they share the area with. iNaturalist will be one of the major, on-line tools that they will use to discover and identify the plants, trees, fungi, mosses lichens, birds, invertebrates, skulls, bones, droppings, tracks, spiders and all other life-forms they encounter.

Ruud Kleinpaste – “The Bugman” and Dr Riley Elliott, Shark Scientist visited the school on Tuesday to talk to students and teachers about how they can learn from nature and the important role that living organisms play in our ecosystem and their impact on our environment.

Kleinpaste spent a second day at the school providing teachers with the tools and resources to identify ways to incorporate the environment and its Biodiversity as an immersive part of the curriculum.

Kenneth Timperley, Karetu School’s Principal, said “I had heard about what Riley does through the media and television but didn’t know much at all. To walk into his session and notice how quiet the kids were, to see how they were hanging off his every word, was amazing. When I stepped into Ruud’s session, I was instantly at ease because once again the children had been “captured” by a man who was passionate, spoke to the kids in their language, and just knew how to impart awesome knowledge through humour.

The children that attend Karetu School are from families that are passionate about the ocean and the bush. The visit from Ruud and Riley has lifted the children out of their winter “blues” and has injected a level of excitement to get out and explore every tree, every piece of bark, and to create mayhem for their teachers!”

Kleinpaste is thrilled to see how engaged the children are and their natural intrigue to learn more about how they can protect the environment and all its living organisms for their future.

“TREEmendous allows us to start an ongoing bioblitz with each school, discovering the biodiversity in the area and helps create engaging cross-curricular activities at the school.”

As one of the five winning schools, Karetu School will also receive $1,000 to go towards their environmental project along with 200 native trees from Trees That Count for the school grounds.