Parents and Educators

ABOUT THE SITE

Wild Eyes is a new website that aims to get Kiwi kids off screens and connected with NZ nature, science and the environment … using screens!

Wild Eyes provides awesome digital incentives to Kiwi kids for completing fun nature missions. The missions are designed to be completed at home or at school, and are perfect for weekend, backyard, or holiday activities; for inquiry learning, LOTC and post-site visit environmental engagement. 

On the Wild Eyes site users set up a profile, pick a Wild Eyes mission, complete the mission and upload a photo of the completed activity to the site. Completed missions earn users digital rewards e.g. new sets of wild eyes for their profile avatar, and tawaki penguin emoji likes from other users.

The idea that is kids inspire other kids. All photo uploads are moderated before publication on the site and users can choose to publish their photo uploads publicly, or keep them private.

 

WHY WILD EYES?

Wild Eyes is a free NZ-specific digital tool for parents and educators that can be used:

– to inspire Kiwi kids to get offline, go outside and engage, explore and learn about Aotearoa's unique environment.

– as a treasure chest of activity ideas for adults and children to draw on, to help Kiwi kids fight boredom. Wild Eyes is good screen time!

– to record, track and share learning progress on a safe digital platform that is relevant to NZ kids. 

– to uncover stories and facts about the natural world around us

– as a gateway to lifelong engagement with the outdoors, science and nature, and a reinforcement of on-site engagement with our partner organisations. 

 

SAFETY

We take safety very seriously. Our safety practice has been developed in consultation with a leading US child-safety online specialist. We want the site to be a safe, friendly, positive environment for Kiwi kids. We encourage all parents, educators and users to learn about how to engage safely online. Netsafe NZ is a great organization that offers lots of resources and advice for parents and kids. Check out their website here.

Safety aspects of the site include:

1. children are never asked to provide their full name or any personal contact details

2. A parent's or teacher's email address is required before users can activate their membership

3. All photo uploads are moderated by trained Wild Eyes staff before they are published to the website. We actively discourage photo uploads that include any of the following:

        – real names

        – identifiable school or other branding

        – mailboxes

        – car number plates

4. Users can only comment about their own photo uploads. These comments are reviewed by Wild Eyes staff prior to publication on the website. We do not accept comments that include any of the following:

        – real names

        – personal information such as addresses, phone numbers, school details, email addresses

        – inappropriate or negative comments

5. Other users can respond to photo uploads by ‘liking’ the photo. There is currently no two-way text based communication available on the site.

6. Parents are advised when their child uploads a photo to the website

7. Users can choose to post photo uploads privately (only they can see them) or publicly

8. We also strip geo-data from all photo uploads so photo content can’t be linked to specific locations.

 

Other questions? Please check out our FAQs section for more specific questions about how to use the site.