One of Apii Te Uki Ou’s year five and six classes built 10 rat traps after spending the term learning about Cook Islands’ native birds.

The classroom teacher, Nic Shand said his students wanted to do something to help the birds after learning about them.

“A huge amount of the learning has been around the native birds and how special they are to the island and the outer islands,” Shand said.

“The kids decided that they would like to get rid of some of their predators.”

The traps have been placed around the school’s out-of-bounds areas and are located on Google maps.

Shand said trapping data would be monitored and the classroom would be able to find the rats’ most common areas.

“It will become a really good link into the maths curriculum with graphing them and that sort of thing.”

Shand said he hoped to take the class to the Takitumu Conservation Area to see some native birds.