Waikato Museum educators are part of a national television series to support home and school-based learning which starts screening today.

The television series focusses on the concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) in its various forms and is being broadcast on Papa Kāinga TV.

Waikato Museum’s contribution examines the kaitiakitanga of history and knowledge through storytelling in various forms (including carving, weaving and artistry), and the kaitiakitanga of te awa (the river) and caring for our natural resources.

Waikato Museum is one of four New Zealand museums to join the ‘Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures’ programme this year.

The Raranga Matihiko programme is led by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as part of the Ministry of Education’s Digital Technologies for All Equity Fund. It is designed to provide school students with the opportunity to use and engage with rich digital technologies experiences and to draw on museum resources to tell the stories that matter to them and their communities.

It combines school visits to museums with museum-based resources students can access at school or home to encourage the use of digital technologies within their learning. It focusses particularly on young people with limited digital learning opportunities.

Raranga Matihiko is a collaborative partnership between education teams at Te Papa, Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi, MTG Museum Hawkes Bay, and Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato in Hamilton.

Waikato Museum Director Cherie Meecham says: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to draw on our extensive collection and on the resources of our trained teachers to contribute to children’s education in a new way.”

“We have also recently appointed an experienced Maaori medium teacher, Isobel Heke, to our education team to bolster our use of te reo in our programmes.”

Home Learning | Papa Kāinga TV runs free to air programming for children and young people aged 2 to 15 from 9am to 3pm during the school week. It is also broadcast on TVNZ channel 2 + 1 and on TVNZ OnDemand, as well as on Sky Channel 502 and Vodafone TV.

See more information about Home Learning | Papa Kāinga TV here.

More information about Waikato Museum’s education programme can be found online here.

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