Tuia Mātauranga behind the scenes
We combined cutting edge technology with beautiful illustration and storytelling to create an immersive education experience, which toured the country and taught our rangatahi the true history of Aotearoa New Zealand.
To acknowledge the history of Aotearoa from a time before humans and the first voyagers arriving, the Ministry of Education (MoE) wanted to create something that would share our country’s history from multiple perspectives, and help rangatahi explore their past, discuss the present and think about our shared future.
We created the Tuia Mātauranga roadshow truck — a fully transportable, multimedia, interactive learning experience. By combining cutting edge technology with beautiful illustration and storytelling, we created an immersive education experience that was relevant to modern audiences, but still felt historic.
Developing a clear and captivating narrative is at the heart of any great learning experience so we used the truck’s walls to take visitors on an engaging journey. The truck’s sides folded up and out to create a 9x9M event space, which we wrapped in a timeline from before humans to the distant future. Augmented reality brought parts of the timeline to life when viewed through a phone or tablet. A virtual reality headset put people on a voyaging waka in the moana, using the stars to navigate to Aotearoa.
Visitors were able to make their own planisphere to learn about navigation and take home an activity book, which was also used in schools as a teaching resource. Built in Unreal game engine, the VR features were also made available through mobile phones separate to the roadshow. We partnered with iwi, experts, historians and many talented collaborators and contributors to ensure the content of Tuia Mātauranga presented the most accurate history.
The portable nature of the experience meant it could be shared in rural communities who sometimes miss out on opportunities to engage with this kind of storytelling. After touring the country from October to December 2019, around 27,000 rangatahi, their whānau and communities interacted with the Tuia Mātauranga roadshow and learned about New Zealand’s history, explored their own identity, and reflected on their role in our future. The impact of this work continues through roadshow resources and interactive content made available online for all whanau on the Tuia Education website.
