Make your own poseable long-tailed bat!

New Zealand is an island nation surrounded by expansive oceans. It is fitting that we have a rich and diverse coastal fauna.

Did you know that you can make some unique New Zealand animals from cardboard? Reuse some old boxes at your house and give this activity a go!

Join Bill as he explores the fascinating, spooky, bizarre world of caves!

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXcujmx6P98

The focus in this issue of Connected is on the Nature of Science strand of the curriculum.

We had a cat once that killed rats, mice, a stoat, skinks, wētā, and some birds. I know, because I saw them dying, and I saw them dead. Perhaps pet cats should be kept inside.

Sounds are all around us, even if we can’t hear them. Human ears are designed to pick up sound waves of a range of different frequencies, but ultrasonic and infrasonic sounds have frequencies that only certain animals can hear.

This article demonstrates how students at Sir Douglas Bader Intermediate School designed a technological device to solve a community problem – how to care for the thousands of newborn kittens handed in to the SPCA each year. It encourages the reader to consider the issues, giving a model for how the same process could be applied to other problems.

A series of posters to support learning about Auckland's unique animal life, and to encourage outdoor exploration.

KCC has worked with some awesome NZ illustrators to bring you some easy-to-follow instructions on drawing some of our favourite NZ animals!

You can make and use our instant taxonomy dials to learn more about the typical characteristics of the eight different NZ whale families. And, it all fits on a pencil!

Names are in English, Sāmoan, Tongan, Rarotongan, Latin, te reo Māori, Chinese, and NZ Sign Language.

Scientists use a special tool called an underwater hydrophone to learn more about our big and magnificent marine mammals!

Have you ever wondered how some animals survive in the cold? Well for some blubber is the answer. Why not try this experiment to see how blubber can protect you from the cold

Bill Nye gives you the furry facts about mammals.
Link for video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT-T8Y_WfxQ

Mammals are the animals that are most familiar to many children. The wide cross-section of mammal forms and lifestyles provides an opportunity to show clear differences and similarities between different groups of mammals and for children to understand how these groups are related.

Marika the Maui dolphin swam through the coastal waters of the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, a once glistening and abundant seabed that was now gloomy and grey, in search of food for her dwindling family...

Adaptation is an evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes increasingly well suited to living in a particular habitat. Marine organisms have adapted to a great diversity of habitats and distinctive environmental conditions.

Marine biodiversity refers to the variety of life in coastal and ocean environments. New Zealand’s
marine environment provides a habitat for an estimated 65,000 species of plants, animals and
microorganisms.

Food webs illustrate the networks of feeding relationships between organisms that live in a particular area. All food webs are made up of producers, consumers and decomposers.

The Marine Mammals episode is smooth; it’s like blubber.
Link for video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0dEBXKf61s

Choose a marine animal that you want to know more about. Using as many different methods of research as you can, answer the questions below about your animal.

Visit young kekeno (New Zealand fur seals) in this Meet the Locals video.

Dive on into science with Bill Nye the Science Guy’s “Ocean Life” episode.

Link for video: https://www.schooltube.com/media/Bill+Nye+Ocean+Life/1_pgcc7ts9