NZAEE Conference

Conference attendees on the final day. Photo credit: NZAEE

The New Zealand Association of Environmental Education Conference, Tataiao, was held in Auckland in the school holidays. Our senior student leader, Angela, spoke on the Rangatahi panel and made us very proud. Our coordinators, Heidi and Rachel, ran a workshop about nature connection in the ngahere, sharing some of the stories that they tell on bush experiences with tamariki. A beautiful puriri moth was found and it stole the show! It was a perfect addition to the story of the puriri tree and how the moth caterpillars live inside the tree for 5-7 years before flying as a moth for only a couple of days.

The conference was a great opportunity to share our resources with environmental educators from all around the country. We’re proud to have over 350 free resources online now, including over 50 available in te reo Māori.

We enjoyed being surrounded by other passionate environmental educators and making connections with them. We also appreciated the chance to have conversations about the current challenges being faced by the sector and hearing some amazing success stories too. There are so many wonderful people out there working to educate future generations about the importance of te taiao and to connect tamariki to nature. Rachel was excited to meet Liv Sisson the author of her favourite fungi book and a soon to be released book on Aotearoa’s butterflies and moths.

We left the conference feeling very inspired. Thank you so much to the organisers of this awesome hui!