Educational Programmes

The Centre provides schools, clubs and other interested groups with guided walks on the Mountain and a choice of seven different hands-on workshops which complement the walks, allowing students to share a glimpse of the everyday life of Te Wai-o-Hua people living on and around the mountain hundreds of years ago.

Guided Walks & Workshops

The Guided Walks allow students to:

  • Explore volcanic origins and geology; and

  • Investigate Maori occupation and remnants of historic structures.

Practical Workshops include:

  • Crafting traditional Maori gardening tools, like ko (digging stick) and timotimo (weeding tool); replicate stone tools (toki and adzes);

  • Building 'manu taratahi' traditional miniature kites;

  • Making contemporary miniature poi;

  • Weaving basic flax items such as putiputi (flowers;

  • Using the tools in our Mara Kai (traditional food garden);

  • Explore our Mara Rongoa (medicinal garden); and

  • Playing Titi Torea (stick games).

On average it takes two hours for a guided walk around Mangere Mountain and one hour to complete up to three workshops of your choice.

Our day programme takes four hours to complete, starting from 10am to 2pm.

Nga hikoi / Mountain walks 

Te hikoi tuatahi o te Maunga o Mangere / Mangere Mountain Introductory Walk. 

This walk provides an overview of the Mountain, its volcanic formation, and its human history from the arrival of the first Tainui ancestors to the present day.

Students will be introduced to some of the following:

  • Te Ara Pueru / The Dog-skin Cloak Path (the palisaded path built to commemorate an 18th century battle);

  • The lower slopes of the mountain;

  • The kumara nurseries;

  • The craters, lava bombs; and

  • Lava flows, kumara pits, house terraces, middens, and paa sites.

From various vantage points on the Mountain, students will be shown places of historic and cultural significance such as: St. James Church, Puketutu Island, other Auckland volcanoes, and the Otuataua Stonefields.

 Te hikoi o te maunga puia / The Volcanic walk

 During this walk students will:

  • View the panoramas of the volcanoes of Tamaki-makau-rau  from various vantage points on the mountain;

  • Examine the transformations of the volcanic landscape on the lower slopes; 

  • Explore the two explosion craters, lava bombs, lava flows, tholoid plug; and

  • Learn how to distinguish between natural features and man-made interventions on the mountain.

     


Te hikoi o nga wa o mua / Maori History Walk

Students will:

  • Explore the traces of Maori occupation on the Mountain (rua kumara, house terraces, fortifications, gateways, paths, gardens etc);

  • Hear stories about the first Maori inhabitants (Hape, Maki, Te Wai-o-hua), later Maori occupants (including Ngati Whatua, Ngati Mahanga, the Kingitanga, the Waikato Land War and confiscations);

  •  Climb Te Ara Pueru and discover its links with the last battle on Mangere Mountain; and

  • Hear about more recent history as Te Wai-o-Hua have faced urbanisation, the Sewage Plant and  the Airport.

     

 
Nga mahi a nga tupuna / Workshops

Nga mahi rakau / Traditional tool-making workshop

During this practical workshop, students will learn how to make:

  • Stone toki (adzes); and

  • Traditional gardening tools like the ko (digging stick) and the timotimo (grubber).

     

Through this work, students will come to understand the role of tools in Maori everyday community life and their importance for survival. 

Students will appreciate the discipline and skills needed to manufacture traditional tools.

 
Mahi manu taratahi / Miniature Kite-Making Workshop
Students will:

  • Make a miniature version of a traditional manu taratahi;

  • Learn about the recreational and educative roles of kite making and kite flying in traditional Maori communities;

  • Hear traditional stories about kites  (e.g. the origin of Manurewa); and

  • Discover the links between kite-flying and Matariki.

     

 

Mahi Raranga harakeke / Flax-Weaving Workshop
During this practical workshop students will:

  • Discover the traditional method of harvesting harakeke;

  • Learn how to prepare harakeke for weaving; and

  • Hand weave basic harakeke items such as putiputi (flowers)

     

 

Mahi poi / Poi-Making Workshop

In this practical workshop, students will:

  • Learn about traditional poi-making techniques;

  • Learn something of the history of the different varieties of poi;

  • Learn how traditional poi were used as weapons, for performance, for recreation and education;

  • Make a miniature version of a contemporary short poi; and

  • Use the poi while singing waiata.

     

 

Mahi mara kai / Traditional Food Garden Workshop

In this practical workshop students will:

  • Discover  the importance of mara kai in the life of Maori communities, and in particular the communities on Mangere Mountain;

  • Understand the relationship between the Mara Kai at the Centre and the historic mara on Mangere Mountain;

  • Explore the displays in the Centre showing traditional mara, plants and tools;

  • Learn the names and uses of the staple Maori foods such as kumara, taro, hue (gourd), riwai (potatoes),  kanga ma (white corn) and kanga whero (red corn), kokihi (NZ spinach), uwhi (yam) and ruruhau;

  • Discover which plants were brought  from Hawaiiki and which were acquired through contact with Pakeha. 

  • Understand how Maori gardening techniques and technology evolved historically, and adapted to changing physical and social environments;

  • Experience working communally in the mara kai using ko and timotimo and recreating tapapa (seedling mounds); and

  • Learn how the volcanic rock was used to speed up the growth of seedlings on Mangere Mountain.

     

 

Mara Rongoa / Medicinal Garden

During ths workshop students will come to appreciate the role of rongoa in traditional Maori society. Students will:

  • Explore the garden, looking at the plants while reading the signs describing each plant's medicinal uses;

  • Learn the names and uses of at least some of the plants in the mara;

  • Discover methods used to prepare medicine; and

  • Learn how the plants continued to be used widely by both Maori and Pakeha during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and how Maori continue to use rongoa at the present day.

     

 

Mahi Titi Torea / Stick Games   
Titi torea provides students with a taste of the traditional stick games that were used to increase dexterity and hand eye co-ordination.

Students will:

  • Learn to co-ordinate several movements with sticks;

  • Work in pairs and large groups; and

  • Combine titi torea with waiata (songs).