Yachting New Zealand had been delivering the Have-a-Go school's programme for 15 years, but the programme had become more and more disconnected from clubs and had no real link into curriculum.

Committed to change, Yachting New Zealand began by establishing an aim, a vision for 2025 and a set of implementation steps for reinventing how its clubs could engage with New Zealand schools and kura.

Yachting New Zealand collaborated with clubs, teachers and kaiako to frame a curriculum called RŪNĀ that teachers thought would be useful, usable and desirable for them and their students, and that clubs felt would be effective and efficient for them to implement.

A group of teachers from the Motu Kairangu Kāhui Ako attended a workshop in Term 2 2020 to begin adding content to RŪNĀ curriculum.

The focus was mostly on feeding into the development of Kōkōkaha so it would be ready for launch alongside of New Zealand hosting the America's Cup in the First Term of 2021.

One of the workshop activities was mapping out the 'customer' journey for Kōkōkaha. Another workshop activity got teachers to add more details to each of the three RŪNĀ modules. 

Information from these two activities was used to develop prototype classroom and club-based learning experiences for Kōkōkaha.

Prototypes of learning experiences, to get ākonga designing, building, trialling and refining technologies were developed. The instructions, resources and background content for each of these experiences were tested with groups of students during Term 3 2002. 

• Design and build anemometer
• Design and build a wind vane
• Design a dance to represent wind
• Design a windsock to capture the wind
• Design a pinwheel
• Design and test a sail car
• Design and make a clay boat and test its ability to float
• Measuring the area and perimeter of a sail
• Build, test and improve a model sailboat
• Design and test a simple foil

Once the prototype learning experience had been tested, they were further refined to form a draft version of Kōkōkaha. the service was then piloted with eight schools during Term 4 2020 and feedback from this process informed the shape of the service that was made available to schools alongside the America's Cup match in 2021.

Kōkōkaha was available to schools for the first time in Term one 2021.

• 935 classrooms from 243 schools and kura registered for Kōkōkaha in Term 1 2021
• Around 60 percent of registered schools ended up participating in Kōkōkaha during Term 1 2021 as the America's Cup unfolded
• 19 clubs and three mobile trailers were set up to deliver sailing experiences during Term 1 2021
• Schools could still do the classroom activities even if they did not do the sailing experience

Kōkōkaha was then evaluated, and the recommendations lead to further refinements to the service, which is now available to schools and kura across Aotearoa New Zealand.

This video shows how Kōkōkaha looked 'in action' after it had passed through the service design process.