Aranui Primary Breaks the Ice at KidsCongress™ - Media release 15-06-05

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KidsCongress™, the digital creativity conference for and by kids returns to Christchurch on May 19 – 20 with Aranui Primary School as the host school. The educational event brings pupils and teachers together to solve a range of theme-based ‘problems’ using digital technologies and multimedia.

logoThis year pupils will be able to utilize the incredible educational resources of the International Antarctic Centre in Christchurch to complete their projects. The centre has generously offered the attraction as a venue. Recognising the value of such an event, Antarctica New Zealand, the official organization responsible for managing Scott Base, have also come on board to offer their resources and experise. Delegates will have the opportunity to learn about the Antarctic and hone their IT skills at the same time in this unique venue.

260 pupils from all over the South Island will attend the 5 year-old event, now run by CORE Education. Thirty teachers will give up their usual classroom time to come and run the same number of breakouts . These include:

  • Virtual Tourism – giving tourists virtual visits to Antarctica using panorama software, quicktime virtual reality software and imovie to develop the guide
  • Robo Challenge 1 & 2 – Creating and controlling your own robotics capable of surviving the elements of Antarctica using advanced LEGO robotics
  • Fashion Theme Challenge – designing and making an Antarctic Outfit with a photo shoot and cat-walk parade to follow
  • Take Care of the Place – making a promotional/educational film to demonstrate the importance of protecting the natural resources of Antarctica
  • Bringing KidsCongress to the World – creating a KidsCongress news story using iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband
  • The Past for the Future – Creating a virtual time capsule to capture the last 100 years at Scott Base for the Scott Base centenary in 2006.

The day before the event begins organizers will truck in and set up the equipment the kids will be using including Macs, pcs, digital still and video cameras, cables, tripods and battery packs. Delegates will have access to the net via Telecom’s School Zone, a high-speed, secure Internet connection.

The finale for the congress is an evening “Extravaganza” at the Antarctic Centre where the kids can let their hair down and party. Parents will be invited to see all of the hard work and there’ll also be some goodies given away.

Director of development at CORE Education, Nick Billowes says; “KidsCongress™ is a unique opportunity to do something delightful and different in education. It’s very important as it allows students to learn and apply new skills and problem solving techniques in an authentic situation. The net result is an opportunity for kids to explore new technologies that they might not get the chance to do in their normal school lives, and the role of CORE Education is to mentor that process.”

For more information go to http://www.kidscongress.org.nz or to arrange an interview please contact Cate Broughton on (03 3790714 OR 021 337 195 OR email at cate.broughton@core-ed.net