Key UC Contacts
What We Did
Led by Vicki Buck Convenor, Climate Action Campus with Niki Stephenson of Ao Tawhiti a special character state school based in Christchurch’s CBD. UC staff are supporting the establishment of NZ’s first Climate Action Campus -with 8 state schools cooperating on this venture together with other tertiary and science research providers. The intention is to support a Climate Action Campus at the former Avonside Girls High Building –and 1.5 hectares of land beside it in the Red Zone. The site sits close to town and right on the Avon -Otakaro River. In Ministry of Education terms for property purposes it will be a satellite school of Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery but for practical terms it will be a cooperative effort of 8 state schools in Christchurch.
The students will study and take action on, any and all aspects of climate change and environmental and ecological development issues. The campus will serve as a resource for students and teachers in Christchurch. It will be the first such state school venture in NZ and run from primary through to secondary and early tertiary and provide a model for other areas of NZ and other countries about ways to provide innovative opportunities for community learning opportunities in a time of climate and ecological crisis.
Why It Matters
A variety of collaborative initiatives with this exciting community based teaching programme and UC are under development. It lends itself to residential programmes as well as citizen science and teach-in discussions and experiments- with scope for artists and writers in residence and community intergenerational workshops- the programme will be a hub for supporting many students and teachers in many schools
We are considering there are lots of ways UC can support this
- Arts: social and ecological wellbeing and citizenship in a changing climate (contact Hayward)
- Education: Place-based environmental and indigenous learning and community leadership (contact Tolbert)
- Earth and Environment: scientific knowledge, case studies, Antarctic outreach (contact Shulmeister)
- Business: sustainability supply chains, new innovations, incubator start ups (contact Mollenkopf)
- Engineering: problem focused climate resilience design projects and teaching (contact Logan)
Learn More
Find out more at
