Teachers can respond to the climate crisis through deliberate choices about what and how to teach. We suggest that, for history teachers, this requires stepping outside traditional topics that often focus on political change. Instead, they need to select contexts for learning that illustrate how global forces of colonisation impact the ecology of local places and how iwi and hapū resist these changes. While this learning can begin in the classroom, it is not enough on its own. Wherever possible, teachers and students need to head into the field, alongside mana whenua. Furthermore, when this learning is consolidated by place-based projects that centre an Indigenous kaupapa, students become more active agents of change with a deep connection to the whenua. We share some of our experiences through excerpts from a reflective conversation between the three of us, two secondary school teachers and their student.