Relationship With Aotahi for Rangatahi Youth Pathways Continues
The Research and Innovation Hub, MetOcean Solutions in Raglan have successfully hosted two school visits in 2024 and plan to host more next year.
The on-going relationship with Aotahi, a not-for-profit organisation that runs community and economic development services in the Waitomo District in the King Country runs the programme ‘Rangatahi in Business’. This initiative involves working with youth at all primary and secondary schools within the Waitomo District to help them navigate from school to study and/or employment. It aims to provide exposure to a wide range of career opportunities and pathways while also building skills that will assist rangatahi when entering study or the workforce.
Students had a short presentation at the MetOcean Solutions offices in Raglan on what we do, who we work with and the impact our work has in New Zealand and globally. The students had lots of questions about the work we do, the range of careers and types of people we have working in our team.
After the presentations we bought the learning to life. Using plastic bins, sand, and water we went to the community gardens and set up sponge-house communities on their identical plots of sand. We gradually increased the impact of the weather (water) on their communities to see how their designs held up. The students learnt about the effects of tides, coastal erosion, storm surges and extreme weather events finishing with a Tsunami.
The students soon realized being extremely close to the beach, or having the best views on the top of the cliff may not work best for their communities in the long-run. When some of the houses were inundated, they were able to re-think their house location and use the gardens to find ways to protect their communities. They all came up with some great solutions – using the garden for natural vegetation, extra gravel, ‘concrete’ provided for seawalls and even used soil to reclaim land. We spoke about the type of warnings we might need and why our warning systems are so important during any extreme weather events.
We plan to continue this relationship next year and hope we may have a few oceanographers and modelers joining us from this programme in the future.
Dr Julie Jacoboski and Dr Mireya Montano Present to Rangitoto Primary School in March
Students from Pukenui Primary School use vegetation planting and ‘concrete’ seawalls to protect their sponge-house community from the effects of severe weather.
A sewall of ‘rocks’ to protect against coastal erosion the students saw after a ‘coastal surge’ came in via the hose.