In a first of a kind for Australasia, Christchurch will soon be home to a Climate Action Campus.
Students will will get their hands dirty with everything from conducting experiments to growing vegetables and rearing chickens (file image). Photo: 123RF
From May next year it will take students from eight schools who will get their hands dirty with everything from conducting experiments to growing vegetables and rearing chickens.
It will be run as a satellite of special character school Ao Tawhiti, and is supported by the Ministry of Education.
Campus director Niki Stephenson, from Ao Tawhiti, said it would show young people ways they could take action.
"We encourage the kids to develop their own learning programmes, and so the kids from the other schools who want to attend the Climate Action Campus, will do just the same," Stephenson said.
"So they can come for an afternoon a week, or a day a week, or a full week, or a full term, or two terms, whatever they want to do, we can make it happen for them."
Campus convenor and former city councillor Vicki Buck, who was involved over the past 16 months in making the campus happen, said climate change was an "existential threat".
"The best way to counter that sense of hopelessness and angst about climate change and ecological destruction is to take action," she said.
The campus will be based in the grounds of the old Avonside Girls High and will make use of 1.8 hectares of neighbouring red zoned land.
The land will become available next month and planning is already under way to start developing it.