waterlea primary school

guardians of our harbour

"Tuwhiri in Schools gave our tamariki a chance to explore our local stories in a new and exciting way using modern creative-technology practices used by ARA Journeys in the industry."

- Steve Matthews, Waterlea Primary School Teacher

our place

Waterlea Primary School is located just a few minutes walk from the Manukau Harbour - the source of many stories of migrations, tohunga, mischief, guardianship and gods.

our stories

The legendary Kaiwhare is said to have been a protector of the harbour and its people after he was ridden into the harbour by the elder Hape.

But what do their stories mean to us?

Class discussion and research:

tohunga those who listened to the signs of the natural world
taniwha and their significance of in regards to sense making and metaphor
mana-whenua and their guardianship of stories
the significance of place
the role of narrative in expression and learning

The elder Hape from the Stories of the Manukau Harbour in the Tuwhiri App.

our mahi

Waterlea Primary School teacher Steve Matthews and ARA Journeys creative Ben Kenobi led year 6 & 7 students from Room 8 through fundamental industry standard processes.

Storyboarding to develop a story-world and characters based on our research.

Our process:

understand our audience
develop ideas through iterative process
communicate ideas through in-game art content design
understand how our art is used in the production pipeline

"It's amazing that our kids see augmented reality as a part of their future careers and on-the-job training."

- Amy, parent (not pictured).

our creations

Once the students chose where their creature would live on the site, they all got to create one of their own creatures and collaborate on one big class taniwha using mixed media 2D physical artwork.

The creatures appear as augmented reality artwork in 3D space at the end of the road by their school.

Available now on Google Play and iOS.