Best for
Senior English, environmental science, social inquiry, and media-literacy lessons where students need to read science and policy writing critically.
Critical literacy • Science and English • Years 9-13
Environmental Text Analysis
Use this handout to help ākonga analyse environmental texts more carefully by checking purpose, voices, evidence, and obligations before accepting a claim at face value.
Free analysis scaffold, premium adaptation path
This page works as a ready-made critical-reading lesson. If you want it rebuilt around a local council plan, iwi statement, school sustainability issue, or current article, Te Wānanga can adapt the sample text while keeping the analysis framework intact.
- Swap in a current article or local environmental proposal.
- Create a simplified version with fewer analysis lenses.
- Save the adapted resource to My Kete and refine in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 40-60 minutes.
- Grouping: Model one lens together, then move students into independent or paired analysis.
- Prep: Decide whether students will use the sample text only or compare it with a second real-world article.
- Teaching move: Keep critique evidence-based and respectful. Students should interrogate the text, not mock the people involved.
Resources already provided
- Aotearoa analysis framework
- Sample environmental text
- Analysis table
- Judgement-writing space
- Support, core, and stretch prompts
- Teacher-only curriculum companion
If the lesson mentions prompts, frameworks, or response scaffolds, those are already included here.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how to test an environmental text for evidence, purpose, and omission.
- We are learning how different voices shape the meaning of a text.
- We are learning how to justify a critical judgement with specific details from what we read.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can explain what the text wants the reader to think or do.
- I can identify what evidence is present and what important voices or information are missing.
- I can write a judgement supported by examples from the text.
Curriculum integration / Te Mātaiaho alignment
Use the companion page to connect this resource to senior English practices of critical analysis, interpretation with evidence, and discursive response building through environmental contexts that matter in Aotearoa.
Critical reading in an Aotearoa context
Environmental texts in Aotearoa include science reports, iwi and hapū statements, council plans, media articles, campaign material, and company claims. Critical reading means asking not only “Is there data?” but also “Whose values, responsibilities, and futures are being centred?”
Mātauranga Māori and kaitiakitanga matter here because environmental issues are not only technical. Good analysis checks whether mana whenua knowledge, local experience, and community obligations have been treated seriously or pushed to the margins.
The PONO analysis frame
P — Purpose and position
What does the author want the reader to believe, support, or ignore?
O — Origin and ownership
Who produced this text, and what interests or responsibilities shape it?
N — Numbers and named evidence
What evidence is actually provided, and how specific or checkable is it?
O — Omitted voices and obligations
Who is missing, and what obligations to whenua, moana, or community are not discussed?
Practice text
Excerpt: Proposed wetland restoration project
“The district's proposed wetland restoration programme will improve water quality while creating a more attractive recreational area for residents. Independent consultants estimate that the plan could reduce stormwater pollution entering the harbour by up to 28 percent over ten years. The proposal focuses on planting, boardwalk development, and better stormwater channels. Council staff argue that the project balances environmental gains with manageable cost. Some residents support the recreation benefits, while critics say the proposal talks more about appearance than long-term ecological repair. The summary report notes that further engagement with mana whenua will take place during detailed design.”
Analyse the text
| PONO lens | What do you notice in this text? | What further question should you ask? |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose and position | ||
| Origin and ownership | ||
| Numbers and named evidence | ||
| Omitted voices and obligations |
Write your judgement
How trustworthy and complete is this text? Explain your answer
using at least two pieces of evidence.
Whose perspective still needs to be heard before a fair public
decision could be made?
Support, core, stretch
Support
Work through one PONO lens together before students analyse independently.
Core
Complete the full table and write a paragraph judgement using evidence from the excerpt.
Stretch
Compare the excerpt with a second real-world text and decide which one gives a fairer basis for public understanding.
Students can annotate, bullet, speak, or write before moving into fuller discursive analysis.
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 explore how mātauranga Māori and Western science offer complementary frameworks for understanding and responding to environmental challenges — learning to read landscapes, ecosystems, and ecological change through both indigenous and scientific lenses.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can explain how mātauranga Māori environmental knowledge provides insights that Western science alone may miss.
- ✅ Students can apply both indigenous and scientific frameworks to analyse a local environmental issue in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide dual-lens analysis frameworks (mātauranga Māori lens | Western science lens) for entry-level comparison tasks. Offer extension challenges asking students to investigate a real environmental monitoring programme in Aotearoa that integrates both knowledge systems — for example, iwi-led water quality monitoring using both traditional indicators and scientific sampling.
ELL / ESOL: Environmental and scientific vocabulary (ecosystem, biodiversity, indicator species, sustainability, kaitiakitanga, taonga species) benefits from visual glossaries with images of local species and environments. Allow students to discuss environmental observations from their home countries as valid comparative contexts. Oral field observation is a powerful entry point that reduces language barriers.
Inclusion: Outdoor and field-based learning naturally supports diverse learners — sensory, kinaesthetic, and place-based engagement complements classroom tasks. Neurodiverse learners often thrive in structured outdoor inquiry. Ensure physical accessibility is considered for field components. Indigenous and Pacific students may bring family knowledge of traditional environmental practices — create space for this knowledge to be honoured, not just acknowledged.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Mātauranga Māori environmental knowledge is not folklore — it is centuries of systematic observation, classification, and adaptive management. Ngā tohu o te rangi (signs of the weather), ngā tohu o te taiao (signs of the natural world), and the detailed ecological knowledge encoded in place names all represent sophisticated environmental science. Kaitiakitanga is not simply "conservation" — it is a dynamic, relational ethic of guardianship that recognises humans as part of, not separate from, ecosystems. Marama Muru-Lanning and other contemporary mātauranga Māori researchers are demonstrating how this knowledge enriches environmental science.
Prior knowledge: Students benefit from foundational understanding of ecosystems and environmental science concepts. No specialist mātauranga Māori knowledge required — the unit builds this knowledge through inquiry.
Curriculum alignment
- Ecology — Living World: Understand how biotic and abiotic factors in ecosystems affect the distribution and abundance of organisms; and how changes in one part can affect the balance and wellbeing of the whole system.
- Place and Environment — Social Studies: Understand how people's management of resources reflects their values — and how mātauranga Māori provides a framework for kaitiaki responsibilities to the natural world.