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NRC Environmental Education Officer Susan Karels with the new Enviroschools’ kit being gifted to Northland teachers. The 19 primary and secondary teachers met with six members of the region’s Northland-based Enviroschools facilitation team at the inaugural Northland Enviroschools teachers’ workshop in Whangarei recently.

Enviroschools is a whole-school approach to environmental education.  It encourages student-driven action, based on sustainable management of resources in several key areas of school life.

The Northland Regional Council (NRC) played a key role in bringing Enviroschools north in 2003 and there are now more than 30 local schools in the programme, which began in 1993 and now includes roughly 700 schools nationally.

Northland Regional Council Environmental Education Officer Susan Karels, who coordinates the Enviroschools programme in Northland, says the roughly 300-page kits are worth about $150 each.

They were launched by the Enviroschools Foundation at a national Enviroschools hui in Rotorua in May and impressed NRC staff ordered 60 kits at a heavily-discounted price ($50 each) to support local teachers taking part in the programme.

Mrs Karels says the kits are split into four sections, the first showing teachers how to work with students to plan for a sustainable school.  The second contains a guide and tools to help students investigate options and decide where to focus their ideas for a sustainable school and community.

The third section helps students to design and implement a specific project and the final section offers them tools to track progress, measure environmental changes and celebrate successes.

Mrs Karels says the NRC plans to give away the remaining kits to other participating Northland Enviroschools.

Further information about the Enviroschools programme is available via the Regional Council’s website www.nrc.govt.nz/enviroschools