Best for
Place-based inquiry, science and social-studies integration, local environmental action, or evidence-gathering before a class project.
Science / Social studies • Years 7-12 • Local inquiry scaffold
Environmental Literacy: Kaitiakitanga Inquiry Framework
Use this handout to help ākonga investigate a local environmental issue with structure: notice what is happening, gather evidence, identify people and places affected, and plan a realistic next action.
Free inquiry scaffold, premium adaptation path
This framework is ready to print. Te Wānanga becomes useful when you want a version tuned to your local awa, maunga, ngahere, waste stream, or community campaign with class-specific prompts and vocabulary support.
- Swap in your own local environmental issue and rohe language.
- Generate junior support or senior extension versions of the same inquiry frame.
- Save the best localised version to My Kete and keep refining it in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 30-45 minutes in class, or as the planning sheet for a longer local inquiry sequence.
- Grouping: Pairs or small groups work well if the issue has multiple perspectives.
- Prep: Choose a specific local issue so students are not left with “the environment” as a vague topic.
- Teaching move: Keep asking for place, evidence, and consequence: Which whenua or wai? What proof? Who is affected?
- Support / stretch: Give a shared issue for support; ask groups to propose multiple actions with trade-offs for stretch.
Resources already provided
- A local issue framing prompt
- Evidence and stakeholder planning spaces
- A cause-and-consequence reflection
- An action-planning section
- A curriculum companion for teacher-only planning and reporting
This page is designed to help kaiako move from generic “care for the environment” talk into specific, place-based inquiry.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how to investigate an environmental issue in our local place.
- We are learning how to use evidence and perspectives to understand what is happening.
- We are learning how to propose a realistic action that reflects kaitiakitanga.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can name a specific local issue and explain why it matters.
- I can record evidence and perspectives connected to the issue.
- I can propose a practical action and justify why it could help.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the links explicit around place and environment, community challenge, perspective-taking, and evidence-based inquiry.
Why this matters in Aotearoa
Environmental literacy in Aotearoa is strongest when students know the places they are talking about. Kaitiakitanga is not an abstract slogan; it is a relationship with whenua, wai, moana, ngahere, and the communities connected to them.
Using a mātauranga Māori lens means asking not only what is damaged, but what responsibilities, relationships, and histories are connected to that place.
Choose your local issue
My issue is: _________________________________________________
It is happening in / near: _____________________________________
Why this place matters: _______________________________________
Gather evidence and perspectives
What evidence do we have?
List what you have seen, measured, photographed, read, or heard from reliable people.
Who is affected?
Think about whānau, hapū, iwi, local residents, wildlife, the school, and future generations.
Causes, consequences, action
What seems to be causing the issue?
What could our class or community do next?
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Health and Physical Education — Hauora
Level 3–4: Identify and develop strategies to maintain and enhance hauora across the four dimensions of Te Whare Tapa Whā; understand how relationships, identity, and cultural connections shape wellbeing.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Understand how social and cultural factors affect health equity; recognise the impact of community, whānau, and cultural identity on individual and collective wellbeing.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
Te Whare Tapa Whā reminds us that wellbeing is not a single dimension but a balance across taha tinana (physical), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional), taha wairua (spiritual), and taha whānau (family and social). Māori frameworks for health do not separate the individual from their relationships, their culture, or their place in the world. This means that supporting student wellbeing in an Aotearoa classroom means supporting the whole person — including their cultural identity, their connection to whānau, and the practices and places that nourish their wairua. Health education that ignores culture misses the most powerful determinants of wellbeing for many students in our classrooms.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to build core literacy skills — reading comprehension, writing craft, and oral language — grounded in the rich storytelling traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand and the literacy practices that empower rangatahi voice.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can apply the literacy skill or strategy featured in this resource with growing independence.
- ✅ Students can connect this resource's literacy focus to authentic texts, contexts, or purposes from their own world.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters, word banks, or graphic organisers for entry-level access. Model think-alouds before independent tasks. Offer extension challenges that deepen analysis — for example, comparing the author's craft choices across two texts or writing an additional stanza or paragraph.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key vocabulary before reading. Allow students to annotate in their home language first, then translate key ideas. Use shared reading and think-pair-share structures to lower the stakes for language production. Bilingual glossaries and visual text supports help bridge comprehension.
Inclusion: Chunk reading and writing tasks into manageable steps. Offer multimodal options — oral, visual, or digital — for students to demonstrate understanding. Neurodiverse learners benefit from clear task structures and explicit success criteria. Affirm diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as assets, not deficits.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Literacy in Te Ao Māori encompasses tātai kōrero (the arrangement of speech), waiata, whakataukī, and the deep art of kōrero — storytelling as knowledge transmission. Encourage students to see their own family stories and community knowledge as valid literacy texts. Karakia opens and closes learning with intention. Tātai kōrero honours the voice.
Prior knowledge: Adaptable across year levels. No specialist prior knowledge required for entry-level engagement. Teachers may wish to pre-read the resource and anticipate vocabulary that needs pre-teaching.
Curriculum alignment
- Reading — Making Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to identify, form, and express ideas across a range of texts.
- Writing — Creating Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to write in a range of text types for a variety of purposes and audiences.