2025 - Ten Years of KGT!
Student Leaders at the KGT 10th Birthday Party, 2025, Spa Park
This year, 2025, marked a special milestone: Kids Greening Taupō turned 10 years old! We celebrated this anniversary at Spa Park, the original launch site of the programme back in 2015. Current student leaders supported the day’s celebrations by leading activities, and we enjoyed reconnecting with past student leaders to learn where their environmental journeys have taken them. Read more about the celebrations here.
Here we take a look back at the journey of KGT to where we are today, in 2025…
Greening Taupō was formed in 2013 as an urban restoration project, designed to make our town a better place for both people and wildlife. Not long after, teachers began asking how their students could be part of this kaupapa. At the same time, we saw the need to connect with different sectors of our community. The solution was to create an education programme – and so the idea of Kids Greening Taupō was formed.
KGT’s first coordinator, Amanda, at the original launch party in 2015
to engage the community in an urban restoration project, designed to make Taupō a better place for people and native wildlife. There were calls from teachers wanting a way to involve their students in the kaupapa and there was a need to reach different sectors of the community. An idea that met both of these needs was to start an education programme. A group of interested people and stakeholders visited the ‘Kids Restore the Kepler’ programme in Fiordland in 2014 and came back ready to set one up as a pilot project. The CCEM model was created by a stakeholder team, led by DOC and researcher, Thea Depetris. From the very beginning, the vision was clear: a programme that was student-led, supported by an education coordinator, and guided by a leadership group made up of iwi, local and regional councils, DOC, schools, and businesses. Kids Greening Taupō (KGT) was formed and the model has since inspired many other programmes around Aotearoa.
Nicola Toki and Thea Depetris at the original launch party in 2015
In 2015, the first KGT Student Leadership programme began. The students were a small group from three schools, and were chosen by their teachers. They met during school time and the mahi was very much focused on launching the programme and increasing awareness of it throughout the community. This involved lots of public presentations, speaking opportunities and media interviews. An official launch party was held in Spa Park in September 2015 with special guests Bug Man Ruud Kleinpaste and Nicola Toki.
Kids Greening Taupō was born out of a simple but powerful idea: that by working with the tamariki, we could bring the whole community on board with restoring biodiversity in our town and grow the next generation of kaitiaki – guardians of our environment. This idea was incredibly successful and over the following years Kids Greening Taupō became a well known organisation in Taupō and a part of the educational journey of students in all of the schools and Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres.
2025 Senior Student Leader Camp
Fast forward ten years and the picture looks very different. In 2025, over one hundred students from eleven schools applied to be part of the programme. Our student leaders now meet outside of school time. They get their hands dirty in restoration projects, learn from local experts, and lead community events. They also take the lead on projects within their own kura.
Each year begins with training sessions to build skills, knowledge, and teamwork. From there, students can choose to participate in a wide range of events and opportunities – from planting days to weeding sessions, from community events to overnight conservation camps. Just last year we held camps at Pureora Forest and Tokaanu, giving students the chance to connect deeply with nature and with each other. Read more about the changes to the Student Leadership Programme here.
Over the years, KGT has grown from an education programme focused on native planting into something much bigger. Of course, we still plant plenty of native trees, and we’re passionate about teaching the importance of restoring habitats to bring back native biodiversity. But that’s only the beginning. Today, our programme branches out into a wide range of experiences and learning opportunities.
We run weeding, mulching, and watering sessions, and we also design special habitats for lizards, butterflies, and native pollinators. Our students learn about introduced predators, how to monitor them, and take part in trapping. Alongside this, we explore the history of Aotearoa, looking at the decisions made in the past that mean we now need to plant, weed, and trap to restore balance.
When we head out on bushwalks, we might be tasting native berries, collecting treasures, learning traditional uses of plants, birdwatching, or bug hunting. Students get to see, touch, and taste the environment in ways that make learning come alive.
We’ve introduced a biological control and we teach about biosecurity, including why Check, Clean, Dry is so important to stop invasive clams. We go catfish fishing, and we have even hand-pollinated a rare plant usually pollinated by bats, Te Pua o te Reinga/dactylanthus.
Freshwater learning is a big part of what we do too. We investigate macroinvertebrates, food webs, wetlands, and riparian planting, often through fun experiments that show just how important these ecosystems are.
Beyond the field, we love connecting with the wider community. We host events and workshops for teachers, run nature art and photography sessions, and celebrate creativity through a huge annual art competition.
The list of what we do keeps growing—but at the heart of it all is a simple goal: to connect children to nature. We want them to see the beauty in the natural world, to feel a sense of wonder about what’s around them, and to carry that connection into the future. If they can experience this, then they’ll want to protect it and they’ll become the leaders of tomorrow—people who value and care for the environment. That is, and always will be, our ultimate goal.
2025 Coordinators- Robyn Ellis (Greening Taupō and Predator Free Taupō), Heidi Pritchard (KGT education coordinator and ECE lead), Rachel Thompson (Lead KGT education coordinator), Naomi Keane (KGT support coordinator)
We now support 46 schools and ECE centres, create bespoke programmes with teachers, and help run restoration events across the district. We work from Reporoa to Kuratau, but our online resources are used nationwide, and our work continues to inspire similar programmes around the motu. Waimarino Restoration, another education programme under the same umbrella of Project Tongariro, now works with schools around the Tongariro National Park area, so between us we cover environmental education for the Central North Island.
Most importantly, over the past decade we have connected thousands of tamariki and rangatahi with nature. We’ve watched them grow in confidence, knowledge, and passion. And we’ve seen them step up as leaders – not just for the environment, but for their schools and communities. The KGT programme has become an integral part of the educational journey of students in this region.
None of this would have been possible without the dedication of our partners, our teachers, our coordinators, our funders, our students and their whānau.
As we reflect on the last ten years, we are proud of what we have achieved together. But this is only the beginning. The next ten years will bring new challenges and new opportunities – and we hope that Kids Greening Taupō will continue to thrive, to innovate, and to inspire.
Being interviewed by 3 News in 2015
Planting with the Prime Minister, Bill English, 2016
2019 Student Leadership Team Formal Ceremony
2020 Student Leadership Team
2021 Junior Team
2021 Senior Team
2022- one of four student leadership teams with their ‘Bug Hotel’ at Spa Park
2022- Predator Free Kids Team
2023- The second year of our student leadership team having over 100 students!
2024 Student Leaders at Greening Taupō Day
