Living Heritage Tikanga Tuku Iho

Living Heritage is an online bilingual initiative that enables New Zealand schools to develop and publish an online resource, based on a heritage treasure in their community.

Participation in Living Heritage is free to all New Zealand schools and open to all age groups. Self-publishing web pages help simplify the process of online publishing for students and teachers. Living Heritage provides an authentic learning experience by encouraging students to become investigators and storytellers, collaborating with each other to research, write, and publish on the Web. Identify a unique and important piece of local heritage to share on the Web such as the story of a local person, family, event, landmark, marae, or building.

Links to the curriculum: A Living Heritage web-based story incorporates the use of ICT across a range of curriculum areas, such as social sciences, technology, English, science, and education for sustainability. Visit the section on curriculum integration for detailed information on how Living Heritage relates to The New Zealand Curriculum.

Living Heritage Tikanga Tuku Iho is a project of the 2020 Trust in partnership with Learning Media, and The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa.

Some examples of school stories include:

• Koru Pa: 13 students from years 5 and 6, at Central School, New Plymouth present their website about the history of Koru Pa at Oakura.
• The Mahana Whakapapa: Each class at Mahana School made an in depth study of historical aspects of Mahana life. They used what they learned to produce an historical production for their school community.
• Nga Poupou (Paparore School’s poupou): In 2005 the school commissioned a kaiwhakairo to carve the schools poupou representing part of the history of the area, the place, the people, the kura and some aspects of learning they think are important. In term 1 and 2 2010, the class topic was, 'Our Place, Our Stories' and the poupou was used as a way of sharing this with others.