Three Year 11 students from Karamū High School have won first place in the 2026 Hawke’s Bay Schools Climate Change Challenge.
Alethea Currie, Keerthana Rajesh and Lottie Melser, members of Karamū High School’s environmental group Tīma Taiao, took home $1,000 in prize money for their Project Paihikara – an endeavour to get staff and students out of cars and onto bikes.
Te Mata School and Sacred Heart College were joint runners-up, each receiving $500.
The Challenge took four subjects – sustainable transport, biodiversity, water and climate-change awareness – and asked students to turn them into something real at their school.
Te Mata served up five biodiversity projects – including a bug hotel, rainwater capture and a birdhouse painted red to tempt tūī – while Sacred Heart took on the environmental toll of fast fashion with a second-hand clothing swap.
Karamū High’s seniors put repair, reuse, kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga to work in their Project Kaitiaki Kākahu Repair Café. Henry Hill School’s Garden Pickles Unite created a sensory garden of kai, flowers and textures for neurodiverse tamariki; Central Hawke’s Bay College’s Technicolour gave unloved grass strips a vibrant native makeover; and Hastings Intermediate’s Bird Corridor set about creating a greener, more bird-friendly pathway – complete with planting and 100 birdhouses.
HBRC Enviroschools Facilitator, Helen Howard says judges were wowed by the imagination and practical good sense of the entries.
“Environmental challenges can feel massive, even overwhelming,” Ms Howard says.
“What impressed us was how the students made them local and manageable – they found something in their own school they could change, then got on with it.
“We were there to support them and offer advice, but the ideas were all theirs and they did the mahi. They’ve been amazing.”
For Project Paihikara, the intrepid trio started with questions. A schoolwide survey asked: Do you bike? Can you bike? If not, why not? No bike? No helmet? Too far? Or – with no judgment – “I can’t be bothered”? The team received 200 responses.
Then they counted bikes – on fine days and rainy days – and counted the empty spaces in the racks. They investigated helmets, locks, spare bikes, a fixed pump and bike repair station. Along the way they discovered 15 school bikes, donated years ago, locked inside a storage container.
Then they made posters, started an Insta page, ran daily bike raffles, sourced vouchers and accessories, held a sustainability Kahoot, and invited local cycling legend, Harry van der Zanden, to Karamū to fix up bikes.
They also spoke at junior and senior assemblies and volunteered as marshals at the Illuminati Night Ride.
“It was a really thoughtful project,” Ms Howard says.
“They didn’t just say, ‘People should bike more.’ They asked why people weren’t biking, listened to the answers, and then started working through the barriers one by one.
“That’s what impressed us across all the entries. These were big environmental issues, but the students approached them with imagination, energy and a very practical sense of what could actually be done.”
And Alethea, Keerthana and Lottie are not finished. Their wish list includes a proper bike station and shelter, spare helmets, a loan-bike scheme, biking club, bike scholarships and perhaps even a “cycling school bus”.
First target: the permanent repair station. Price tag: about $2,500. The $1,000 prize is a useful start.
Ms Howard says the calibre of this year’s entries says plenty about the young people coming through Hawke’s Bay schools.
“There are some incredibly thoughtful, far-sighted kids in our region. They’re idealistic, which is exactly what you want, but they’re practical too. They want to make things better – and they’re prepared to do the mahi.”
She is encouraging teachers and schools interested in next year’s Climate Change Challenge to get in touch with HBRC’s Environmental Education team.
Schools and early childhood centres can also become involved in Enviroschools, which supports tamariki and students to explore environmental issues and take action in their own communities. Hawke’s Bay currently has 75 participating Enviroschools – 44 schools and 31 early childhood centres – involving around 10,400 tamariki and students.
“If you’ve got students who are interested in the environment, or a teacher who wants to get something going, we’d love to hear from you,” she said.
