Thanks so much to everyone who has joined me for the wild, crazy, ride of KGT over the past 7 years. There have been many fun adventures and I am so grateful to have had you all alongside me on the journey. I have loved every minute of it!
Goodbye and Reflections
After 7 years in my role as the Lead Education Coordinator for Kids Greening Taupō (KGT), I have made the very difficult decision that it is time for me to move on. It has been a pretty incredible journey and I've loved every minute of it! As I finish up, I’ve been reflecting on my time in the role and how proud I am of what we have achieved. KGT was still getting going when I started, and when I told people that I was moving from being a classroom teacher to KGT most of them had no idea what it was. Today, I think most people in town know what we do and every child has had sessions with us.
Taking over from Thea in 2020
Our team at Greening Taupō Day 2026 - Kiri, Rachel, Anna, Heidi, Naomi, Robyn
The beginning… straight into lockdown!
I began working for Kids Greening Taupō as the Lead Education Coordinator at the start of 2020. I shadowed my predecessor, Thea, for the first five weeks, taking over from her officially on the first day of lockdown! The same day, KGT’s other coordinator, Sian, started back after being on leave. We never had a chance to meet in person before starting work together from our ‘bubbles’. It was difficult to work with schools and the community when we were all stuck at home, and we felt pressure to prove to funders and sponsors that we were still achieving our goals. We decided that the way to do this was to make online resources that helped people to connect to their local green space, and online resources for teachers who were sharing work online with their students. Our daily facebook ‘Nature Connectors’ became very popular and we later turned them into website resources. Each week Sian and I would release an ‘Online Nature Classroom’, a unit of work about a native species or Aotearoa Conservation.
These resources are all still on our website and we’ve continued to add to them. The collection has grown to over 350 free educational resources used by teachers, students and whānau all over Aotearoa. Our 50+ te reo Māori resources are utilised by kura kaupapa and kōhanga reo nationwide. I have always been proud to bump into teachers from other parts of Aotearoa and hear that they regularly use our resources. All our resources, like our sessions with schools/ECE centres and student leaders are free. I believe that if we genuinely want to share important environmental messages as far as possible, we should be making everything free and easily accessible. A range of amazing funders and supporters who also believe in this have made this possible over the years, and I really want to thank them. Without this amazing collaboration, the many successes that I’m reflecting on now would never have been possible.
Being interviewed for Māori TV news about a trapline with TKKM o Whakarewa in 2020
Sian, Robyn, Andrew Hilton and I being interviewed for a Seven Sharp ‘Good Sorts’ story about Shawn Vennell (in orange) in 2020
School/ECE Planting Projects
Our first Kairuruku reo Māori, Tākoha Pitiroi
When I started, there were already many awesome planting projects underway at urban schools and ECE centres, thanks to Thea and the team before me. It was great to continue these, and to start adding new schools and ECE centres. By 2022 we were excited to realise that we were working with all urban Taupō schools. Extra funding in the years following allowed us to begin working with rural schools and then with Tūrangi and Reporoa in 2024. We saw a need to employ a Kairuruku reo Māori to work with Kura Kaupapa and Kōhanga reo, so in 2021 we made this happen. Tākoha Pitiroi joined our team delivering our sessions in te reo Māori and beginning our te reo Māori resource development.
Today, in 2026, we have 49 schools/ECE centres that have planting projects with us. Many of them have multiple projects, such as a large restoration planting on TDC land nearby, a lizard or butterfly habitat in a school garden, an area of rongoā species, informative signage for significant native trees, a bug hotel, or an outdoor classroom space. It can be hard to keep on top of recording them all, but I have done my best to document many of them on 'Our Projects' page.
Raising the Profile of KGT
In 2020, we discussed trying to raise the profile of KGT and to also provide an opportunity for the community to donate to the programme that we provided for free. The idea of a fundraising event was raised by our director, Paul Green. I wondered if we could ask the schools to have a ‘dress in green’ day. I thought that it would be a good fundraiser and a way for schools that receive our programme for free to give back, but more importantly, a way to raise our profile. I figured if every student in town asked their parents for a coin for KGT, that would get families talking about us and what we do. I couldn’t believe it when I actually saw tamariki all around town dressed in green for us!
Kim Manunui from Korio helped us get things off the ground, and the annual Arbor Day planting event, ‘Greening Taupō Day,’ started officially in 2021. It grew fast! We realised that with so many people keen to come along we would need more than just planting, so we began to ask our supporters and partners to run activities for the tamariki. It turned into a festival of environmental education. By 2024 it involved all of the schools in town, 50 organisations with activities and stands, and thousands of attendees.
It is always a huge amount of work to bring it all together, and then it’s all over in a flash, but it is an event that I am proud to have been part of from its inception.
Thousands of people attending the opening of Greening Taupō Day 2026!
The annual Greening Taupō Day art competition has been going since 2021 and is always very popular. Donovan Bixley, Sue Graham, and Huka Honey Hive have been amazing supporters of this.
Nature Connection
When I took over from Thea, she said to me, “Rachel, you know the latest research shows that it’s really all about nature connection, remember that.” Then she shared a David Attenborough quote with me that explained how nature connection for children was key to conservation. From that moment on, we made nature connection a priority, especially with the youngest tamariki that we worked with.
In 2022, Heidi joined the team. Although she was an experienced primary school teacher, she had recently retrained as an ECE (Early Childhood Education) teacher, so she took the lead on our ECE programme and it flourished. The two of us have had lots of fun adventures over the years and our own children have been very lucky to join us on many of them, learning alongside us. I will forever be grateful for that.
Flexibility - allowing us to respond to the needs of the community
I believe that one thing that KGT has always done well, is to be flexible and able to take on any topics that are relevant to the community at the time. During Covid lockdowns, we provided people with ways to learn online and connect with their local greenspaces. When the Aotearoa NZ Histories Curriculum was introduced, we ran teacher PD, released resources, and ran sessions in schools related to the history of biodiversity in Aotearoa. After cyclone Gabriel hit, we were able to support schools in the Hawkes Bay that were cut off, by putting together educational packs and getting them delivered by helicopter. The discovery of invasive clams in the Waikato River led to us creating resources that are used by schools and councils throughout the country. In 2025, I made it a goal to reach everyone in Taupō with the Check Clean Dry message by running sessions with every school in the Taupō catchment, and we achieved it!
Making packs of resources for home learning for students in Hawkes Bay after Cyclone Gabriel. Generous local businesses supplied the contents and we put them together and had them delivered by helicopter within a week of the disaster happening.
Learning to dissect barn owl pellets to see what they are eating in Aotearoa. We loved doing this with our students too.
An artificial bat roost box put up at the Waipāhīhī Botanical Reserve with support from Taupō Forest and Bird
Taking opportunities
I’ve always been keen to jump into conservation opportunities and learn through real experience on the ground. It has been heaps of fun learning new skills and working alongside so many amazing people. I’ve emptied bait stations in the Pureora Forest, helped set up a baitline on Mt Pirongia, run my own urban trapline, done bittern monitoring in a wetland with DOC, helped ecologists with lizard monitoring in a geothermal area, joined kiwi releases, done predator monitoring on Mt Tauhara for Predator Free Taupō, done dactylanthus monitoring/pollination with DOC, and even helped with heather spraying on Mt Pihanga (getting there by helicopter was very exciting!). I was even offered an opportunity to set up a bat detector by the Bat Co. Lab, and that resulted in the first pekapeka in urban Taupō being recorded, which led to us installing bat roost boxes at the Waipahihi Botanical Reserve.
I’ve loved taking every opportunity to upskill through hui and courses too, attending a Blake Inspire Teachers course, a pekapeka hui, nature education courses, bush school courses, fungi workshops, Climate Fresks, rongoā courses, a Tane’s Tree Trust AGM, Field-Based STEM opportunities, and even a Wingspan course to learn to dissect owl pellets! All of these authentic conservation experiences were incredibly valuable to me when it came to being able to educate tamariki about protecting the environment. I had lots of new knowledge, good stories and fun experiences to share with them.
Spraying invasive heather on Mt Pihanga to support DOC was one of my favourite conservation jobs while working for KGT
Catching tradescantia beetles at Maeroa Intermediate to move to Taupō
Following interests and learning alongside the community
I’ve loved being able to follow my own interests during my time with KGT, and then take the community with me on each learning journey. One example of this was when I became interested in biological controls. I asked WRC if there was any way that we could get involved with biocontrol work happening here in Taupō. They said that the tradescantia beetles had been going well in other parts of the Waikato, but had failed to establish a population in Taupō. That sounded like a good challenge! I worked with them and Enviroschools to visit Maeroa Intermediate students in Hamilton, collecting beetles with ‘pooters’ (bottles with straws stuck in to suck up the beetles!). St Patrick’s School students in Taupō took on the project, releasing the beetles in their local gully and monitoring how they went. They successfully over-wintered and are now here in Taupō munching away at this terrible weed. We ended up hosting a bio-control workshop for the community here in Taupō with WRC too.
The KGT Strategic Leadership Group is comprised of representatives from DOC, Project Tongariro, Taupō District Council, Waikato Regional Council, Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board, along with elected councilors, teachers, student leaders, ecologists, funders, and other stakeholders. This group was amazing at providing support, accountability, strategic guidance, and so much more.
Collaboration is Key
Kids Greening Taupō was set up as a pilot project by DOC and other stakeholders in 2015. It has a Strategic Leadership Group of representatives from stakeholders and partners. This group has been amazing at sharing knowledge and guiding the programme. The CCM model that was used to set up KGT has since been used to set up other projects in various places around Aotearoa. I have felt very lucky to be part of this network over the years, helping others, and learning from others, along the way. I have been asked to run workshops or present at a number of conferences and events. Being able to share the knowledge and experience gained through our work with other educators has always been a privilege and the learning always goes both ways. Presenting at the Nature Education Network Conferences, where we camped in the rain was a highlight. I have been able to meet so many experts in different conservation fields and learn from all of them. Being able to call many of theses special people friends now is one of the best take-aways from my work with KGT.
Representing Tiwaiwaka and learning rongoā from Pā Ropata
I loved bringing in experts like Sam the Trap Man to work with students here in Taupō
I have enjoyed working with Ruud Kleinpaste many times over the years through KGT and in my work with Field-Based STEM
Taking opportunities and sharing them with our student leaders
Taking opportunities as they arise, has been a real theme over the past 7 years. When we were asked if we could lead the Kiwi Contact tours for Save the Kiwi at the Gallagher Kiwi Burrow in Wairakei, we jumped at the chance. That work has definitely been a highlight for us - it’s hard to beat seeing a kiwi hatch out of an egg! We also took on the role of facilitating the Trees for Survival programme in Taupō and I have loved learning alongside the other facilitators from all over Aotearoa. They are all keen knowledgeable people working in similar roles in their areas. We even worked with a local ecologist to put together geothermal ecosystem resources, then took on geothermal education at Craters of the Moon and in other geothermal spaces.
Our student leadership team, an extra curricular group of students, has grown to over 130 students in 2026. They and their whānau are often the ones sharing these fun opportunities with us. Together we’ve helped run many community planting days, but also had camps, done bush skills course, tagged overwintering butterflies for research, swabbed number plates for the DNA Drive project, collected native seedlings from pine forests and transplanted them into restoration sites, done nature art classes, gone on catfish fishing trips, done fungi photography, cleared invasive weeds, planted lizard habitats, and run many guided bushwalks and nocturnal bug hunts.
Unlike other education programmes, we have never had a set curriculum to follow. This has meant that we have been able to keep things relevant and interesting, always supporting local conservation opportunities and learning needs as they arise. I believe that this has been a real strength of the programme.
Kiwi tours at Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary were always a highlight
Transplanting seedlings with NZ Forest Managers
Supporting the planting on Tauhara Maunga with Trees for Survival
It hasn’t been all work!
We did get to trade in our boots for heels on a few occasions and we even won an award - ‘Community Angels’ at the Stella Awards 2024
Being awarded the Harcourts Good Sort Award for Freshwater Biosecurity education in 2026
Thank you!
I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved and of the high-quality programme we have been able to deliver to all the tamariki in the wider Taupō area. It means a great deal to me that KGT is so highly regarded by schools, ECE centres, whānau, other environmental education organisations, and the many stakeholders that we work alongside, including businesses, councils, iwi and DOC. I’m grateful to everyone for allowing me to share so many amazing learning experiences with their tamariki. It has been pretty special to learn alongside so many in the community and to see the tamariki of Taupō grow up with hands-on conservation opportunities as a standard part of their schooling.
While I'm very sad to be leaving, I know that the programme is in great hands. Heidi will ensure that the wonderful learning experiences continue. I look forward to seeing where the programme goes to next and what other awesome achievements it will have.
KGT turns 10! We had a great party and put in a permanent sign at Spa Park in 2025.
Tagging butterflies
Wally the Wallaby from Epro joins our team
Geothermal education at Craters of the Moon
Washing, drying and matching up hundreds of gloves after a muddy session has been one of the less exciting aspects of the job!
We encouraged our senior students to take opportunities like presenting submissions to TDC for things like the long term plan and a cat bylaw.
Doing an interview with Clare Concannon for an RNZ podcast with the ‘Wicked Weeders’.
Opening our Bug Hotel at Spa Park
Running an educational session with the men in Tongariro Prison
Christmas Floats!
