2019 Kids Greening Taupo blog

Kids Greening Taupō is a collaborative community education programme in Taupō, New Zealand which works with kindergarten-aged children right through to high school students. Kids Greening Taupō established in 2015  to engage young people in conservation and environmental education, while providing them with real-life, hands-on connection to the environment. Student-led initiatives are focused on increasing native wildlife and plants into our local urban environment. Kids Greening Taupō coordinators- Sian Moffitt and Thea DePetris - facilitate collaboration and communication between the students, schools and various local partners. 

Kids Greening Taupō is one of three conservation programmes under the umbrella of Project Tongariro. After a helicopter crash in 1982 tragically killed four Department of Conservation rangers, Project Tongariro (previously known as Tongariro Natural History Society) was established as a memorial and a continuation of their commitment restoring the National Park. For close to twenty-five years, Project Tongariro has worked with volunteers and partner organisations to help restore natural and historic heritage and increase the understanding of visitors to the National Park and other special areas. More recently, Project Tongariro’s strategic plan aimed to initiate and support through a governance role to other groups, such as Greening Taupō, Kids Greening Taupō, and Predator Free Taupō. Kids Greening Taupō was inspired by Greening Taupō and their mission to restore the local environment through planting.

This conservation education programme originated as a pilot programme based on another conservation project in the South Island, Kids Restore the Kepler. During the initial pilot,  Kids Greening Taupō involved three local schools and two local kindergartens. Now in 2019, Kids Greening Taupō has spread out to include eight local schools and four local kindergartens, with a growing waiting list. The programme comprises two main student teams, the Student Leaders and the Rangers. The Student Leadership Team is a group of 20 students years 6-13, who get together on a Tuesday once a month to develop their leadership skills and learn new things about the environment. The Rangers are the in-school conservation experts; Sian and Thea work with them during school time for four learning workshops in Terms one and four and through whānau support, participate in community events in Terms 2 and 3. They do a number of surveys on birds, plants, invertebrates, and pests, learn conservation best practice through hands-on work and play conservation games. 

We are very lucky to have our two Coordinators, Thea DePetris and Sian Moffitt, on board. Thea was involved in Kids Greening Taupō while doing her Masters of Education through the University of Waikato in 2015. Thea was looking for a research topic for her course, she offered her help when she heard about the Kids Greening Taupō programme. After completing her masters the coordinator role became available, Thea applied and was successful in getting the position. Sian was a keen year 13 when Kids Greening was in their pilot year, she was able to be a student mentor, photographer, master of ceremonies for the launch event and worked with the GOOD design company to develop Kids Greening’s logo. Four years later Sian came back to us, after doing a Bachelor of Science majoring in Ecology and Biodiversity, and Environmental Studies. Sian is a very engaging leader with a lot to bring to our team.

The programme’s main focus of bringing back native birds and wildlife to Taupō is achieved in many different ways. Kids Greening Taupō, along with Greening Taupō and the Environmental Education Collaborative hold a lot of community events where people from Taupō and other places in the district come and enjoy a day finding bugs and birds, planting natives, litter or making little presents for people out of nature. Every year in Kids Greening Taupō Student Leadership Team plan and run their own planting day. With help from community volunteers, this planting day involves planting natives donated by the  Taupō District Council. The team then hosts a sausage sizzle for all the workers to say thank you for their help and enable participants to connect and socialize. Kids Greening also does a lot of tracking of pests and have just recently started trapping the pests across town so the newly planted trees have a chance to grow and the birds are safe to come back.

Kids Greening Taupō is a way for young people to connect with and take action for the environment collaboratively. Our team wants to make Taupō a better place and to help inspire people throughout New Zealand and even in other countries to do their bit to help their local environment.

Written by:

Tanya Walley

Year 12, Tauhara College

Co-Secretary of the 2019 Student Leadership Team