Latest news with #MātaurangaMāori
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Science
- RNZ News
Floating marae among designs by rangatahi showcased at science fair
Meremia and Ezra from Te Rangihakahaka Wakanoa and their model of a marae built to rise from floodwaters. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod A group of rangatahi have designed a marae that is able to rise above floodwaters and shown their work at New Zealand's only science fair that celebrates the intersection of Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and science . Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair took place in Rotorua from 23 - 25 July. The Rotorua-based science fair is run by Te Arawa Lakes Trust and has grown rapidly over the last five years and for the first time schools from around the country were invited to take part. Held inside the Rotorua energy events centre, students came up with ecological and climate solutions for tomorrow. Meremia, Miss-Mei, and Ezra are from Te Rangihakahaka. They designed a model of a marae built on a platform, Ta Waka Noa, which would be able to rise above floodwaters. They thought through inflation, flotation, and what was needed for survival while waiting for floodwaters to go down, including food and composting toilets. Hikareia and Kaitlyn from Te Kura o te Whānau a Apanui and their project counting birds at the river of Motu on the edge of Gisborne. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod Ezra said he hoped one day a system like it might save lives. "This is a disaster-relief system. So, when it floats, everyone will be in there, the whole iwi - anyone is allowed to come in here - so it's like a public marae," he said. Event co-ordinator Keeley Grantham said seeing projects like the one from Te Rangihakahaka was exactly why she was involved with the fair. "That's a real-life issue that we are looking at with climate change, rising sea levels and marae being on floodplains. That's an amazing solution." She said most New Zealand science fairs focus only on western science. "This science fair is all about enabling different types of knowledge, different types of sciences and embodying a te ao Māori lens." And there was a big focus on the environment, with categories including biosecurity, biodiversity and conservation, sustainability, marine and freshwater environments, Mātauranga Māori, and climate change adaptation and resilience. One of the fair judges, Te Rika Temara-Benfell (centre) with others from Te Puna Ariki Charitable Trust. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod One of the judges, Te Rika Temara-Benfell from Te Puna Ariki Charitable Trust, said the projects gave him hope for the future. "They're just far beyond anything I was doing at that age. Some of them [are aged] nine and ten and they are researching microplastics and things happening across our environment and community." An example of that is Hikareia and Kaitlyn from Te Kura o te Whānau a Apanui who counted birds at the river of Motu on the edge of Gisborne. "We do it to see if the nature is living," Hikareia said. They found terns, seagulls and plovers currently present in the environment. Temara-Benfell said he was amazed by the projects he saw. "It's been beautiful to see some of the solutions for these contemporary issues our rangatahi and children are facing, answered with Mātauranga Māori and not just that but from many different lens across other scientific fields and across community projects." An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the school as Te Rangihakahaka Wakanoa. The school's name is Te Rangihakahaka, and Te Waka Noa is the name of the project.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Science
- RNZ News
Floating marae among designs showcased by rangatahi showcase at science fair
Meremia and Ezra from Te Rangihakahaka Wakanoa and their model of a marae built to rise from floodwaters. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod A group of rangatahi have designed a marae that is able to rise above floodwaters and shown their work at New Zealand's only science fair that celebrates the intersection of Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and science . Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair took place in Rotorua from 23 - 25 July. The Rotorua-based science fair is run by Te Arawa Lakes Trust and has grown rapidly over the last five years and for the first time schools from around the country were invited to take part. Held inside the Rotorua energy events centre, students came up with ecological and climate solutions for tomorrow. Meremia, Miss-Mei, and Ezra are from Te Rangihakahaka Wakanoa. They designed a model of a marae built on a platform, which would be able to rise above floodwaters. They thought through inflation, flotation, and what was needed for survival while waiting for floodwaters to go down, including food and composting toilets. Hikareia and Kaitlyn from Te Kura o te Whānau a Apanui and their project counting birds at the river of Motu on the edge of Gisborne. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod Ezra said he hoped one day a system like it might save lives. "This is a disaster-relief system. So, when it floats, everyone will be in there, the whole iwi - anyone is allowed to come in here - so it's like a public marae," he said. Event co-ordinator Keeley Grantham said seeing projects like the one from Te Rangihakahaka Wakanoa was exactly why she was involved with the fair. "That's a real-life issue that we are looking at with climate change, rising sea levels and marae being on floodplains. That's an amazing solution." She said most New Zealand science fairs focus only on western science. "This science fair is all about enabling different types of knowledge, different types of sciences and embodying a te ao Māori lens." And there was a big focus on the environment, with categories including biosecurity, biodiversity and conservation, sustainability, marine and freshwater environments, Mātauranga Māori, and climate change adaptation and resilience. One of the fair judges, Te Rika Temara-Benfell (centre) with others from Te Puna Ariki Charitable Trust. Photo: RNZ / Libby Kirkby-McLeod One of the judges, Te Rika Temara-Benfell from Te Puna Ariki Charitable Trust, said the projects gave him hope for the future. "They're just far beyond anything I was doing at that age. Some of them [are aged] nine and ten and they are researching microplastics and things happening across our environment and community." An example of that is Hikareia and Kaitlyn from Te Kura o te Whānau a Apanui who counted birds at the river of Motu on the edge of Gisborne. "We do it to see if the nature is living," Hikareia said. They found terns, seagulls and plovers currently present in the environment. Temara-Benfell said he was amazed by the projects he saw. "It's been beautiful to see some of the solutions for these contemporary issues our rangatahi and children are facing, answered with Mātauranga Māori and not just that but from many different lens across other scientific fields and across community projects."
Scoop
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Communities Can't Foot The Bill For Climate Crisis
Te Pāti Māori sends aroha to whānau, and communities impacted by the recent severe weather across Nelson Tasman, Banks Peninsula, Northland and beyond. While dozens of people are still unable to return home, National and Labour are already hinting at a Climate Adaptation plan that would see impacted communities pay for their own recovery. 'These so-called 'once in a lifetime' events are now happening every year. It's only been one year since Wairoa flooded, and a year before that we had Cyclone Gabrielle' said MP for Te Tai Tonga, Tākuta Ferris. 'Communities need more than short-term fixes. They need urgent, sustained investment in both recovery and long-term climate adaption. 'The corporations who are fuelling the climate crisis should be the ones paying for adaptation and recovery – it's not the community's fault that their houses are flooded, why should they have to pay?' Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, MP for Te Tai Tokerau, says the government's continued failure to resource Māori communities is a symptom of Māori being too resilient. 'What we are seeing today is the perverse consequence of our resilience. When our communities are this resilient, their hardship becomes invisible. 'It is our Māori communities who bear the brunt of these climate disasters-isolated and under-resourced. But despite being the most impacted, they are also the first to respond. 'But this resilience is not new, it is a natural part of our Māori ecosystem, an in-built response born of whakapapa, whanaungatanga, and the knowledge that no one else is coming.' Te Pāti Māori will empower Māori to implement our own climate adaptation solutions, we will provide funding to impacted communities, and we will ensure that Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Mātauranga Māori form the basis of our climate adaptation strategy. 'Recovery must be driven by those who know their whenua, whakapapa, and communities, not dictated by distant bureaucrats with no connection to the realities on the ground' concluded Ferris.
RNZ News
15-07-2025
- Science
- RNZ News
Getting hands on with science creating 'good scientific citizens'
A student from Rotorua Girls' High School explains her project at Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair in 2024. Photo: Supplied/Te Arawa Lakes Trust Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā - a science fair based in Rotorua - is hoping to attract more young women into the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair is run by Te Arawa Lakes Trust and this year will be held from 23-25 July at the Rotorua Energy Events Centre. Rotorua Girls' High School science teacher Geraldine Cunningham said this will be the third year students at the school have entered exhibits of their own. The fair helps learners who might find classroom learning a bit more difficult, with the teachers mentoring them to find the knowledge themselves, she said. Cunningham said getting more young wāhine involved in STEM requires them to have people they can model themselves after. "If they see somebody in there that's succeeding then they tend to go 'oh yeah I can do this too.' In my earlier years teaching science it was all textbook stuff and I just looked at the kids and they just weren't engaged or anything." As part of the fair, the schools year 9 and 10 classes work as part of a collective on a pilot program called Manaaki Mauri, which involves the ecological restoration of the Sanatorium Reserve, a nationally significant geothermal landscape on the edge of central Rotorua. "So the long term goal is to get it back to what it was before the human impacts and so most of our projects revolve around that," Cunningham said. Students have the chance to look at plastic pollution and its affect on native species in the reserve, including the endangered tarāpuka or black billed gull and a colony of long-tailed bats, she said. Students from Rotorua Girls' High School with their projects at Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair in 2024. Photo: Supplied/Te Arawa Lakes Trust Giving students the chance to engage in hands on science out in the field helps to create "good scientific citizens," she said. "I've watched these kids go from 'I can just litter anywhere, it doesn't affect me' to actually thinking more about our effects that we have on our taiao (environment). "With that connection comes immediate engagement because it's real, it's not going away, it's not fairytale atoms and chemicals... it's actually robust and real for them." Cunningham said she had absolutely seen more of an interest in science from her students since they began to enter the fair. Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā has given the teachers an avenue to teach science through Papatūānuku and through mātauranga Māori, she said. "Rather than teach to the curriculum actually make it real and engaging for our young people, especially our young women, because they are going to be the ones that in the future need to look after our whenua and taiao." Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā event coordinator Keeley Grantham. Photo: Supplied/Te Arawa Lakes Trust Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā event coordinator Keeley Grantham said engaging with students directly was often the best way to get them involved. "I think the best way to get any young rangatahi but especially young wāhine involved is actually just having a kōrero to them from our perspective as wāhine in science. "To showcase that its not just this scary environment of labcoats and Bunsen burners and that science is much broader than that, you can be out in the field, you can research a whole heap of different things and having that face to face engagement and showcasing them things in the field is what I find has the biggest impact." Grantham said since the fair began five years ago there has been a gradual increase in the number of young wāhine entering, but having Rotorua Girls involved specifically has really given it a boost. "This event is growing every year, I mean we've got nearly 250 kids coming along to the event next week to actually participate and share their ideas, so that's 250 minds combining to look at issues in our taiao." Grantham acknowledged the effort from the tamariki who have entered projects in the fair this year, as well as our kaiako (teachers) and whānau who support them. Event coordinator Keeley Grantham congratulates tamariki at Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair in 2024. Photo: Supplied/Te Arawa Lakes Trust Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
10-07-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Te Tai Tokerau Impact Fund Supports 15 More Regional Initiatives
The final round of the Te Tai Tokerau Impact Fund has been allocated, with 15 Northland-based projects receiving a combined $230,000 in support. The second round attracted 42 applications seeking over $700,000, highlighting strong demand for early-stage investment in community-led development. A third of the funded projects from the second round are Māori-led. 'The quality and ambition of projects coming through this fund has been very high,' says Vaughan Cooper, Head of Investment and Infrastructure at Northland Inc. 'From community wellbeing, promotion of our districts, and Mātauranga Māori, it's clear that Northlanders are ready to lead the change they want to see.' The Te Tai Tokerau Impact Fund is administered by Northland Inc and NorthChamber, with support from Transpower and Omexom. It was created to back community and kaupapa-driven projects that contribute to long-term regional resilience. Across two rounds, the fund has now distributed $430,000 to 32 projects throughout the region. Projects funded through the two rounds of allocations are already underway, with initiatives such as Girls Who Grow launching its climate-positive agriculture programme for young women into Taitokerau Northland, and the Kerikeri District Business Association and Bay of Islands Business Association rolling out a groundbreaking project focused on CCTV and community safety in the Mid and Far North. NorthChamber Chief Executive Leah McKerrow, who was part of the fund's decision-making panel, says the calibre of applications highlighted the region's determination and desire to make a difference. 'This fund gives communities the chance to lift up great ideas and turn them into action. The panel was keen to support those ideas that will make a tangible and far reaching impact. It's positive to see the difference this funding is already making on the ground in Te Tai Tokerau.' Transpower's Executive General Manager Customer and External Affairs Raewyn Moss supported this view. 'We are so pleased to see this funding empowering real opportunities for development, community-building and increased resilience across Taitokerau Northland. We look forward to the stories of the impact the funding has and the achievements from the initiatives that were successful in this funding round.'
