Hauraki Primary School Living Heritage Award

UNESCO MEDIA RELEASE: Hauraki Primary School children win Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Award

Are Mangroves unwanted weeds, the "Gorse of the sea" or are they beautiful trees that attract native birds? Mangrove swamps are prevalent throughout Takapuna and yet local youngsters discovered that adults seemed divided over where they were a good or a bad thing.

This prompted four Year Five children from Hauraki Primary School - Jack, Joel, Nina and Leah -to find out more. They embarked on an online project that saw them win a Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Award this week.

"Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Awards celebrate our country's heritage and or treasures," says NZ National Commission for UNESCO chair, Bryan Gould. "UNESCO recognises that living or intangible heritage provides people with a sense of identity and continuity. Helping young people to learn from their past is a key way to help prepare them for the future."

The young project team talked to local people, environmentalists and studied research online. They reached the insightful conclusion that they needed to find good ways to get rid of mangroves when they are growing in the wrong place - but also initiatives to help save the local environment as well. Their overall conclusion was that there needs to be more young people like them to make a difference in the world.

Living Heritage is a free, bilingual (English-Maori) online resource that enables schools all over New Zealand to develop and publish websites about heritage treasures of their communities. Living Heritage preserves history and culture in a digital format and allows children's voices to present a view of New Zealand on the World Wide Web.

The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO helped establish the Living Heritage Taonga Tuku Iho Awards to celebrate schools whose work contributes to UNESCO objectives by capturing heritage resources for future generations

Living Heritage (Tikanga Tuku Iho) is a project of the 2020 Communications Trustin partnership with The Learning Centre Trust of New Zealand, The National Library of New ZealandTe Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, and Sun Microsystems.

Visit Hauraki Primary Schools Mangrove Research Project:

http://www.livingheritage.org.nz/schools/primary/hauraki/mangrove-forest/index.php

Visit NZ National Commission for UNESCO: www.unesco.org.nz

ENDS

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