Teach Climate History event: climate action and history teaching in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Teach Climate History (University College London)
Ka ara ake te akoranga i tewhenua: climate action and history teaching in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Event Type: External
Takes Place: 27th February 2025
Time: 4.30-5.30pm
Venue: Online
Description: The climate crisis demands new approaches to education. One way teachers can respond is by making different choices about what and how we teach. In this talk, Michael Harcourt and Haimana Hirini present a project from Taitā College, a secondary school in Te Awakairangi, New Zealand, that integrated mātauranga (Indigenous Māori knowledge) with critical, place-based historical thinking. This project unfolded in three parts. First, they selected a learning context – Wairarapa Moana, New Zealand’s third-largest lake – that illustrates how colonisation has altered local ecologies and how Indigenous communities resist such changes. Second, they organised a field trip to the lake with tribal custodians, reinforcing and expanding students’ learning through direct engagement with the land and its history. Finally – or more accurately, underpinning these two – some students consolidated their learning through Te Ahi Kaa, a school-based restoration of a swamp behind Taitā College that fosters Māori ways of thinking and being. Through these activities, students developed a profound connection to the land and became active agents of change. This project highlights how integrating Indigenous knowledge and critical historical thinking can empower young people to respond to global challenges while grounding them in their local contexts.
Price: Free
Organiser: Teach Climate History, www.teachclimate.co.uk
Lecturer: Michael Harcourt, history teacher at Te Aho o te Kura Pounamu; Haimana Hirini, tangata whenua of Aotearoa