Whitcombe and Lauper went on a journey to find a road through the pass betwean the Rakaia river and the west coast but failed. Even though Lauper couldn’t swim he still went in the little boat that they made. They eventually got in the boat and  it started to sink  so Whitcombe. started swimming and left Lauper. He had held on for hours until he finally washed up on the beach and saw Whitcombe, dead.

Karoro 2026 Kids Vote   – Kaleigh

We have just finished the Kids Vote 2026.  Earlier in the week we held a leader debate. 

My chart shows that the Green Party won the general vote. I think that this happened because The Green Party knew a lot of people that wanted them to win. But Opportunity came first in the people’s vote. 

The final score was Green with 36 and Opportunity with 33.  Even with this being the results about 26 of our votes did not count because they were not filled in correctly so they could not be used so if that was not the case it could have ended with different results.

I think that these results will be different from the proper election because in the proper election they have thousands of people voting and we only had just over 100 people voting so that might make a difference. 

It might also be different because the parties that are working together in our Kids Vote election might not work well together in real life because they all have different beliefs and all want to do different things for our country. It might just end in an argument.

Kidsvote Data Charts -Ivy

Recently at Karoro School we held a Kidsvote election. Ruma Kea held these elections and we had the parties as well as an electoral commission. Prior to voting we held a debate between the parties on Friday the 23rd. This connects to the NZ General Election in many aspects. We held a mock debate just like the up and coming on Tuesday night. We got to choose what parties to represent and who we wanted to team up with. The following is the data.

For the parties overall Green took out the win with 22.2% of votes. Opportunity followed with 17.5% and NZ First after with 14.6%. Void votes took up a huge amount with 12.3% of votes voided.These following parties came up with 5 or less Te Pati Maori, Alliance, NZ Outdoors, NZ Loyal and Animals Justice. Unfortunately these parties came out with no votes ALC, Conservation, Free Palestine, Te Tai Tokerau and Vision.

I personally believe that the Green Party won because of a suggestion to be able to bring the kids of Karoro up our bush track to build huts. I believe that Opportunity won second because their leader Shalom had an amazing debate and asked many difficult questions…she always had an answer. 

So for the parties votes the final ranking was the Green Party first, Opportunity second and NZ First coming in at third. 

For the Kidsvote candidates, Opportunity took it out with an impressive 21.6% with Green closely chasing behind with 20.3%. 

Act followed with 13.5% and NZ First at 12.2%. Both Labour and National came in with 10.1% with the rest of the parties- in this order- NZ Outdoors, Alliance and Progressives. 

I believe that Opportunity came first because they put themselves out there to the school during the voting period therefore stealing more votes. Green was very close behind. I believe that they came second because of their suggestions that grab the attention of young students in our kura. 

Our voting system was run by Gabby and Maddie of the electoral commission who did an incredible job (especially with the young kids). 

We also have an official Prime Minister-Shalom Chihwai- and two Deputy Prime Ministers Jethro of the Green Party and Ivy(me) of NZ First.

I believe that overall our representation of the NZ General Election was fairly accurate. We had different Parties, Candidates, a debate, as well as an actual and accurate voting system for the whole school. 

Even though we did a very good job in the representation I believe that the parties that have been elected in our election will not actually be elected in the NZ General Election. For reference the parties that have chosen to work together are Opportunity, the Greens and NZ First.

Kids Vote 2026

Recently we held our Kids’ Vote elections at Karoro School. Before that we held the leaders’ debate. Me and Adam were the moderators. The debate was attended by all of the seniors of the school. 

Some of the questions we asked were: 

Many politicians seem to own more than one home and they have a lot of money in the bank… when other New Zealanders have no home to go to, and no money to live on.Do you think it’s fair to have billionaires with 10 houses and people with no money? 

The government has made lots of good and bad decisions that affect the lives of New Zealanders every day. What is one thing you disagree with the current government why and what do you think of the state of New Zealand? 

If you earn $100, at the moment $35 gets taxed, then we pay more tax in GST, another $15 and then there is road tax that gets taken away by the government to pay for our roads.Do you think New Zealand’s tax should increase or decrease and why?

It was really interesting seeing what they had to say and a lot of their answers surprised us!

The outcome from the Kids Vote election is as follows:

This data shows that  Opportunity and Green were both overwhelmingly more popular than the rest of the parties and people in our Kids Vote elections. I think this is the case because of the way the students who represented the parties responded to the questions and the students posters and how popular they are in the school. 

I think the Kids Vote played out very differently to how the actual vote in the General Election will play out because it is very unlikely that Green and Opportunity will get higher votes than the National and Labour parties.

We had kids voting at Karoro School. Before this voting we had a leadership debate, this probably contributes to the results. 

The data shows us that the Green Party won by 8 points over Opportunity. In the candidate vote we see that Opportunity won over the Green Party by one point. 

We are doing this to learn more about the elections and to prepare us for the future when we have to vote.

I was surprised that the Greens won because it was my party and I didn’t expect to win. I think that in the upcoming general election Green will not win because people do not like their taxes being raised even if it is for a good cause.

I don’t think this affects the NZ General Election because people like Labour and National way more than Green in my opinion. 

Lake Daniel Challenge 

The name of the Lake Daniel hut is Kōhanga Atawhai – Manson Nicholls Hut.

The hut, Kohanga-Atawhai Manson Nichols was named after Brian and Sharon Manson and Philip Nichols who tragically lost their lives to a landslide.

 Many birds including Toutouwai / New Zealand Robin, Tomtit/ Rifleman,Kākā,Kākāriki / Yellow-crowned parakeet, Tūī, Mātātā / South Island Fernbird, Korimako / Bellbird,Riroriro / Grey Warbler have  proliferated in the Lake Daniell area.

The Original name of Lake Daniell was Lake Daniells all that was changed in 2008 was the s at the end.

The lake elevation for Lake Daniell is around 566 metres and 1,857 feet.

The Lake Daniell beach forest can be dangerous because of the rough river that runs alongside the track and the steep slopes and cliffs and change in weather can cause risks of slipping or falling. Lake Daniel is also full of predator control bait that can be dangerous to humans.Also the Lake Daniells bush is dangerous because all of the bush around you looks the same making it very easy to get lost.

 ‘Sluice Box”.  A sluice box is a long trough that is used to separate gold from gravel in dirt in the river.

  The Maruia Waka Hui programme is to protect to native animals such as the south island Kaka and long tailed bats or Pekapeka.

Kia ora koutou and welcome to my blog post about who makes the group decisions. For Rugby the captains of the team but the coach makes the main decisions like subbing, red cards/yellow cards. 

Kia Ora and welcome to my blog post about the Harpy Eagle. Lately we have been learning about the rain forest and the creatures that live in the rain forest. I really enjoyed doing the research on the Harpy Eagle.

i have done a macaw here are five facts about macaws.

Title – NZ’s Election Process

Intro – To cast your vote you have to be 18 and over. The NZ voting is every 4 years. NZ was the first country to let women vote in 1893. NZ is a democratic country.

P1 -MMP stands for Mixed Members proportional. MMP is important to voting because it makes sure that it is fair for the voters.You have two votes you use one and you use the other one that is called an electric vote if parties get electric votes the more seats that  they will get in parliament if they get 5% electoral votes they will get 5% of seats in parliament out of 120 seats.people can vote if they are woman, man or other, you have to be over the age of 18 to vote. In other countries women are not allowed to vote or have a right to vote.

P2 – When NZ votes it is every 4 years. The political parties are National, opportunity, ACT, Green party Labour, NZ first, and Te pāti Māori the leaders of the leaders are National Party is Christopher Luxon, Labour is Chris Hipkins, Green party is Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick,  ACT is David Seymour, NZ first is Winston Peters and Te Pā Māori Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi.

P3 – In New Zealand we were the first country to let women vote in 1893 on 19th of September, the first woman to vote in the world is Carrie McPherson.

When parties do not have enough votes and they want to win they will make a coalition, a coalition is when two or more parties make an alliance but not a permanent alliance so they can get more seats in parliament so they can win together. Voting in NZ is very different to every other country.  

Conclusion – Voting in NZ is very important because voting makes sure that everyone has a chance to say what the issues and problems are.

Lianka Van Heerden

This week we have been leaning abault the rainforests and what is in it. so we can get a part of art dun for display I did a capybara because they look cute