Next week I’ve been asked to visit two Masterton schools, St Patrick’s primary and Opaki, on Wednesday. 

My talk at St Pat’s is to 5-7 year olds about our precious things.  A few different “professionals” are going to be on-site and the children come around and talk to us about something that’s precious to us.  I’ve had a couple of ideas that I’d like to run past you as I love my job but I don’t really have much experience doing this:

• Bring our summer placement trainee ranger Wiremu Grace as my precious thing.  I believe that the future of DOC and conservation lies with the good training of our new rangers and having people like Wiremu there is important and very precious.
  

  Hector's dolphin courtesy Engel and Maecker 2007

• Marine animals are very precious to me.  I’ve got some Marine Mammal posters and I can talk about seals, whales etc
• Take a harakeke (flax) and talk about the benefits of native planting to NZ
• Tuna (eel) – see my earlier blog entry 🙂
• Or something else – any suggestions????

My second talk of the day is at Opaki which is just north of Masterton on State Highway One.  I’m standing up in front of 70 children to talk about Castlepoint and what an exciting piece of the conservation estate it is.  I’m going to run through dune plants and their importance and a few other things (yet to be determined).

It’s great to be able to get out and talk to school groups and its coincidence they’ve asked when I’ve got time in my diary.  The children love to see DOC staff in their uniforms and hear about our exciting jobs.  I’m looking forward to Wednesday – now I’ve just got to sort out what I’m going to say….

The striking Castlepoint Scenic Reserve