Manawaru School - Marieke Latimer

Name: Marieke Latimer

School: Manawaru School

Programme: ‘Exploring the Nature of Science in an Agricultural Setting’

Region: Waikato

Host: DairyNZ

Manawaru School aims to strengthen scientific knowledge based on feedback from secondary level about science levels and knowledge.  Bringing confidence and knowledge in the area of science with a curriculum integration focus will benefit the kura to be more connected with science overall and give appropriate exposure for their tamariki.  Having an agricultural focus is important for their area to make the learning relevant to what many of their tamariki are exposed to in their lives away from school.  Manawaru School’s aim is to provide meaningful experiences for their children so they can be connected and knowledgeable participants for their futures.

Marieke has been working as a teacher for 5 years at Manawaru School.  Having an interest in making learning relevant and exciting for children is important for Marieke and completing this in a practical sense is paramount.  Marieke has a strong interest in learning and discovering knowledge through play after completing workshops on play based learning, which has led her to become interested in science and amalgamating the two approaches to learning. After seeing the awe and wonder in children’s faces when they learn something new in a practical sense, made her realise that Play Based Learning in the upper primary level was more relevant when it had context and purpose for the learning they do in class.

Marieke’s placement is through DairyNZ in Ruakura near Hamilton where she will be immersed with the science technical team on their research farm, Lye Farm. It was her preference to work in the dairy industry to make the work a lot of her tamariki do and experience at home relevant.  Marieke will be given opportunities to talk to, learn from and work alongside the science technical team who carry out studies with a focus on making farming sustainable for the future of Aotearoa. 

DairyNZ are offering a world class opportunity for Marieke to be immersed in the research side of the dairy industry by completing practical research and visits to partner organisations of DairyNZ.  The work she will be involved in has a focus on changing perceptions for both farmers and the public around the dairy sector.  The areas of agriculture Marieke will be involved in will be methane emissions (input vs output), animal behavior, testing samples and analyzing and understanding data.

On completion of the placement, Marieke hopes to bring this science knowledge back into her school and be able to highlight the good work being done within the dairy industry and be able to pose questions to problems for the tamariki to solve before giving them real world examples for solutions.