Yep, we found a rat trap! 🧐

Our students keen eyes made this discovery and sparked a wonderful mix of excitement, fascination & wonder!

We discussed how the trap works and some students pretended to be rats with their sticks, smelling the yummy peanut butter lure... and ohh the anticipation for when the trap would go off! Not to mention the delight and squeals when it snapped the end of their sticks off in an instant 😄

The why

Following this, I knew we had to introduce the logic behind predator trapping in NZ... and no it's not just cause we don't like rats!

The story of how NZ had millions of years in isolation without land-based mammalian predators and learning the devastating impact that introducing species such as rats & stoats has had on our forests was really eye opening for the kids. And when they heard that over 50 species of NZ's bird have sadly been lost forever as a result, it really hit it home.

The students were in awe of this history, but also inspired by the movement that's taking place to really turn this around... the vision to make NZ predator free! 🙏

We shared a short clip from the recent award-winning "Fight for the Wild" series, and the students got very excited about the thought of kākā flying around their neighborhoods and kiwi nosing around in their backyards!

Reading the signs

We're keen to see what we can do to help this vision for NZ become a reality.

By learning to read "ngā tohu o te ngahere" we are building our understanding of the predators in our landscape. And the kids are into it.

I really can't wait to see what solutions these kids come up with for this wonderful space of ours.

Watch this space whānau.

Until next time,

Matua Jake