Best for
Ocean health, pollution, environmental systems, and integrated literacy-science learning where students need evidence prompts and stronger civic response thinking.
Integrated inquiry • Microplastics, mauri, and response • Years 7-10 • Print-ready tomorrow
Ocean Health & Kaitiakitanga
Use this handout to help ākonga understand microplastics through both science evidence and mātauranga Māori. It moves students beyond “pick up rubbish” into a deeper look at how pollution affects mauri, species, people, and the kinds of action that actually matter.
Free taiao scaffold, premium localisation path
This version is ready to teach. If you want it adapted around a local beach, harbour, awa mouth, school waste stream, or iwi-approved local case study, Te Wānanga can rebuild it while keeping the kaitiakitanga lens and response pathway strong.
- Swap in local species, local waste data, or a nearby waterway.
- Create junior visual supports or senior policy-response extensions.
- Save the adapted version and continue later in My Kete or Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 35-50 minutes depending on whether students complete the impact map and final action justification.
- Grouping: Pairs work well for the evidence sort, then individual or small group work for the action ladder.
- Prep: Bring one short source, image, or dataset on microplastics so the worksheet stays connected to a real issue rather than abstract concern.
- Teaching move: Keep pushing students to distinguish personal action, community action, and structural change.
Resources already provided
- Science and mātauranga comparison prompts
- Source-impact-action table
- Impact web drawing space
- Action ladder and justification space
- Curriculum companion for teacher planning clarity
If you want students to move from evidence into action without losing depth, the scaffolds are already here.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how microplastics affect oceans, species, and people.
- We are learning how science evidence and mātauranga Māori together deepen our understanding of ocean health.
- We are learning to choose responses that fit the scale of the issue.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can explain one way microplastics affect the environment or food web.
- I can describe how mauri or kaitiakitanga helps frame the issue differently.
- I can justify a response and name whether it is personal, community, or systems-level.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
Use the linked curriculum companion to keep evidence interpretation, environmental systems thinking, and the Aotearoa kaitiakitanga lens visible in teacher planning.
Keep the response deeper than guilt
Students often jump straight to “everyone should recycle more”. That is too thin. Stronger inquiry asks what happens to mauri, who carries the harm, and what kinds of response are needed at different levels.
What each lens helps us notice
Science can help us notice
- Where microplastics come from
- How they move through water and food webs
- What tests, counts, or samples show
- Which species or places are most affected
Mātauranga Māori can help us notice
- How pollution affects mauri and relationship to place
- Why responsibility is collective, not individual only
- What kaitiakitanga asks us to do next
- How local place and whakapapa shape the response
Source, impact, and action tracker
| Evidence or observation | What impact does it suggest? | What action might follow? |
|---|---|---|
| Plastic fibres found in fish or shellfish | ||
| Rubbish and fragments collecting after heavy rain | ||
| Local concern about swimming, kai gathering, or beach health | ||
| Observation that a place no longer feels clean or healthy |
Impact web
Draw or label who and what is affected when microplastics enter a local waterway or beach: species, kai gathering, recreation, whānau, hapori, and future generations.
Action ladder
Personal
What can one person or class change immediately?
Community
What can a school, marae, or local group organise together?
Systems
What needs policy, business, council, or industry action?
Choose the strongest next step
Justify your response
Which level of action matters most in your case, and why? Use evidence and a kaitiakitanga lens in your answer.
Support, core, and stretch pathway
Support
Complete two rows of the table and choose one level of action only.
Core
Trace impacts across the food web or community and justify one strong response.
Stretch
Explain why a popular action might feel helpful but still be too small on its own.
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Mathematics — Pāngarau
Level 3–4: Apply number operations, statistical analysis, and mathematical reasoning to solve real-world problems; represent data using appropriate tools; interpret and communicate mathematical findings clearly.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Understand how mathematical data and statistics are used to describe and analyse social, economic, and environmental patterns; recognise how data can reveal or obscure inequality.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
Mathematics has always been part of mātauranga Māori — in the navigation of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, in the architectural precision of wharenui, in the sophisticated storage and accounting systems of rua kūmara, and in the patterns of kōwhaiwhai and tukutuku that encode mathematical relationships in visual form. When Māori students engage with mathematics, they are not encountering something foreign: they are meeting a domain of knowledge that their tīpuna practised with extraordinary sophistication. Framing mathematical learning through whakapapa — connecting concepts to real Māori contexts — is not "cultural add-on" but recognition of where much mathematical knowledge lives in this land.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Resources already provided
- All referenced resources are provided alongside this handout in the Te Kete Ako collection.
- For related materials, use the search or browse by unit in Te Kete Ako.