Best for
The 15-minute assessment briefing in Lesson 7. One copy per student.
Assessment brief • Years 7–8 • Unit 10 Week 7
Assessment Task Sheet: Food Security Poster
Your poster answers one question: what is one food-security challenge facing a community in Aotearoa, and what is being done about it? Four elements, all of them required. Annotate this sheet during the briefing — it is your task contract.
Free to teach tomorrow, adaptable to your rohe
The brief is ready to hand out. Te Wānanga is useful when you want the topic menu rebuilt around organisations in your own rohe.
- Replace the topic menu with communities and organisations near your kura.
- Generate a scaffolded version with sentence starters for each of the four elements.
- Save your adapted Unit 10 assessment pack in My Kete.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 15 minutes briefing, then 15 minutes topic selection.
- Grouping: Whole class for the briefing, individual for topic choice.
- Prep: One copy per student. Decide in advance whether posters are A3 paper or digital.
- Teaching move: Approve topics as you circulate. Check the topic names a specific community, not “food poverty in general”.
What this sheet already gives you
- The task question and all four required elements
- A fully worked example using Hawke's Bay
- The topic menu with eight researchable options
- Topic-approval and specificity checks
- A plain-language guide to what a strong poster does
The evaluation element is the one that separates a strong poster from an adequate one. Say that to students at the briefing, not at the marking.
Ngā Whāinga Ako / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to describe the assessment task in our own words, including all four elements.
- We are learning to choose a topic that is specific, connected to the unit, and researchable.
- We are learning what an honest evaluation of a community response looks like.
Ngā Paearu Angitū / Success Criteria
- I can describe the poster task in my own words, including all four required elements.
- My topic names a specific community or place and connects to a unit concept.
- I can explain what makes an evaluation honest rather than just positive.
The task
Create a poster that answers this question:
What is one food-security challenge facing a community in Aotearoa, and what is being done about it?
Your poster must include all four elements below. A poster missing one element cannot meet the success criteria, however good the other three are.
| Element | What it must do | Done |
|---|---|---|
| The problem | Describe the food-security challenge, using evidence — a statistic, a specific event, or a named impact. | ☐ |
| The cause | Explain what structural cause makes this challenge happen. Connect to at least one concept from the unit: scarcity, trade-off, structural cause, interdependence, climate. | ☐ |
| The response | Describe one community or organisation already responding. Name who is involved and what they do. | ☐ |
| The evaluation | Explain one thing the response achieves and one thing it cannot solve. Be honest — no response solves everything. | ☐ |
A worked example
Here is the same four-element structure, filled in. Use it as a shape, not a script.
| Element | Worked example — Hawke's Bay after Cyclone Gabrielle (2023) |
|---|---|
| The problem | Cyclone Gabrielle buried Hawke's Bay orchards and market gardens in silt in February 2023. Damage to the region's horticulture is estimated at around $1.5 billion, and the cost across every sector at more than $5 billion. |
| The cause | Climate change is a structural driver: warmer oceans make cyclones more intense. The scarcity is not one bad season — replanted orchards take years to bear fruit, so one event removes several harvests. |
| The response | Growers organised collectively to clear silt, replant and build flood resilience, supported by regional recovery funding. |
| The evaluation | Replanting works in the long run. It does nothing for families paying higher produce prices now — the opportunity cost falls on consumers, not on growers. |
Figures as cited in Lesson 6. Cost estimates for this event vary by what is counted and over what period; if you use them, say which estimate you are using.
Choose your topic
Choose one topic from this menu, or propose your own for approval.
- Māra kai community gardens in South Auckland and Māngere
- Mana Kai food rescue operations in Wellington or Christchurch
- Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei's food sovereignty programme in Auckland
- Hawke's Bay primary sector recovery after Cyclone Gabrielle
- Canterbury drought and dairy farming water trade-offs
- Kaikōura fishing industry after the 2016 earthquake
- Pacific Island whānau food insecurity in South Auckland
- KiwiHarvest food rescue: reducing waste to increase access
| Your answer | |
|---|---|
| My topic is | |
| I chose it because | |
| It connects to this lesson or concept from the unit | |
| Kaiako approved | ☐ |
Check your topic before you start
- ☐ My topic names a specific community, place or organisation — not “food poverty” in general.
- ☐ Real organisations or events exist that I can find sources about.
- ☐ I can connect it to at least one unit concept.
- ☐ It is small enough to research in one lesson.
What a strong poster does
- Uses a specific fact from a named source, not a general statement.
- Explains why the problem keeps happening, not only that it happens.
- Names a real response and describes what it actually does.
- Says honestly what the response cannot solve.
- Can be understood by someone who has not studied this unit.