Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Just spent a week with 30 teachers in various environmental locations of Auckland. The Sir Peter Blake Trust do this every year under the umbrella of BLAKE Inspire.   Learning outside is part of the curriculum: water quality, Matauranga Māori, rockpools, school gardens (with pigs etc), climate change, StarDome, political policy simulation, corporate sustainability, and good, old nature nerd stuff in forests and reserves.   Often the question comes up: what good do Mosquitoes do? And beetles? And weta?, etc.   Those are also the questions I receive on talkback radio – makes sense?   Teachers can use this knowledge in the curriculum and hence create Nature Literate students.   We need those invertebrates (they really don’t need us!).   In fact, when it comes to bugs that “invade” our homes, it pays to remember that we built our homes right on top of theirs. They are pretty generous about that, really: nice house you built on top of mine – might just move in with you!   They f