Connecting kids to nature
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
Spend a little time with the Karioi education programme students and you’ll understand Oliver Holmes completely. These youth spend time enthusiastically learning new skills, exploring their environment, and fully immersing themselves in activities that stretch their understanding of nature, others and themselves.
For the past several years, the Karioi Project has been offering Whāingaroa young people the opportunity to be a Karioi Kid (aged 7-8) or a Karioi Ranger (ages 9-12). This after-school program gives students a chance to connect with nature, their community and themselves. Through hands-on activities and games, the Kids and Rangers become familiar and comfortable with a variety of ecosystems and skills. They learn to build survival huts in the bush, trap predators that threaten our native wildlife and start fires with flint and steel. At low tide, they discuss the lives of sea stars and crabs that inhabit the salty pools at Whale Bay. Becoming aware of the role of dunes in preventing erosion leads students to encourage friends, family, and even strangers not to walk through this fragile habitat in an effort to conserve plant and animal life. The students often develop an appreciation and love for a variety of habitats and, in turn, become stewards.
The Karioi School Holiday Program was a 2020 addition to the education stream of the Karioi Project. Seeing a need in the community for whanau to play and learn together in the outdoors over the holidays, Karioi education facilitators invited 6-12 year-olds to join for full-day adventures. With more time available for exploration, the team ventured to Pirongia for bush walks, Taitua Arboretum for energetic forest quests and Hamilton to take advantage of the Botanic Gardens, museum and epic playgrounds. Relating to the environment continues to be a focus while encouraging positive social skills, teamwork and developing a sense of place.
Through all these programs, there is a thread of care and connection; connection to oneself, to the environment, to each other and to our wider community. Karioi participants meet many superstars of Whāingaroa, e.g. the kite flyers of Ozone and kayak instructors at Raglan Kayak. They explore ecosystems that might be new or discovered from a different perspective. Many students come back term after term for the changing activities and friendships. The program uniquely combines youth from five different schools, youth that might live on the same street but have never met. By learning and playing together, the students develop confidence trying and perfecting new skills expanding their curiosity while engaging with the natural world, and developing their resilience to face whatever comes.