Student Leadership Teams 2026
Our Student Leadership Team applications opened in February and we were amazed to have over 130 students apply to join the team!
These students were put into 4 teams, Lower primary, Upper primary, Intermediate and Senior (high school). Each age group is offered different opportunities during the year. We started off with sessions with each team to get to know the students. They played a BINGO game to learn about each other, then a role play game to learn about the history of biodiversity in Aotearoa. It helped them to understand why we do what we do, planting native trees and trapping predators.
When we heard that Blake was going to be in town with their amazing VR session all about looking after our marine and freshwater environment, we asked them to do a session for our student leaders. 35 lucky students got to take part in this immersive experience.
Our intermediate and senior student leaders watched all of the video applications for the Contact Energy Take Action Fund from local ECE centres and schools. Then, they made comments on each one and decided how much money each one should receive. It’s great that they have a voice in how the money is distributed to projects. Thanks so much Contact Energy for funding our school/ECE centre native planting projects and nature connection.
We also took 20 lucky intermediate and high school students to camp at Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari for a weekend.
Then, we finished the term with our first planting of the season, training sessions for our student leaders to ensure they are ready for the upcoming community planting days. We ran three sessions and they put 100 plants in the ground. They also had a tour of the Unison- sponsored Centennial Drive site, seeing the change from weedy scrub to a native forest that is well over their heads. There are 5 years of plantings there, including our first Greening Taupō Day in 2021, with many more to come. It will one day be an area of native bush wit a loop track that people can walk and enjoy native biodiversity in town.
Thanks so much for the great work at this site by Andrew Hilton over the years, and to John Hutchison for digging all the holes for us and supporting this session.
