Posted: 20 April 2007
Harbour focus for NRC teacher workshops
More than 40 teachers are to attend special Northland Regional Council workshops highlighting the environmental education teaching opportunities offered by one of the region’s busiest harbours.
Teachers from 33 Northland schools will take to the waters of Whangarei Harbour during two day-long workshops to be held on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 May.
Susan Botting, an Environmental Education Officer with the Regional Council, says with more than a dozen harbours and 3200km of coast in Northland, the sea is an integral part of daily life for many who live in the region.
With that in mind, the Council has decided to make Whangarei Harbour and its surrounding environment the focus of its 2007 teacher workshops.
“Our harbours offer an incredible range of environmental education opportunities for teachers in all sorts of fields from the sciences to the arts,” Ms Botting says.
She says as part of the workshops, teachers will explore Whangarei Harbour by boat, including visits to Matakohe-Limestone Island and the Marsden Cove marina development.
Teachers will also hear from a variety of Regional Council experts on topics including tsunami risks, foreign marine invaders, coastal development, aquaculture and the state of the harbour. Two schools will present on their harbour-focussed environmental education initiatives.
Ms Botting says teachers from a wide variety of schools from north of Kaitaia to the Kaipara have successfully applied to attend the workshops. The first workshop will be aimed at primary teachers, while the second will focus on secondary teaching.