Teaching use
Whole-class science lesson, local inquiry launch, or cross-curricular sustainability discussion.
Science ā¢ Years 9-10 ā¢ Ready to teach
Climate Change Through Te Taiao MÄori Lens
Use this Years 9-10 science lesson to connect climate change concepts with mÄtauranga MÄori, kaitiakitanga, and local environmental observation in Aotearoa classrooms.
Use this lesson as a starting point
This page is free to teach as-is. If you want to localise the examples, shift the reading level, or turn it into a worksheet or assessment task, Te WÄnanga can draft a classroom-ready variant and pass it through Creation Studio for editing and saving.
- Swap in your awa, coastline, ngahere, or local climate event.
- Turn the inquiry into a worksheet, slideshow, or reflective writing task.
- Save the adapted version in My Kete so you can reuse it next term.
Teacher planning snapshot
- Duration: 2 to 3 lessons of 50 to 60 minutes, or one inquiry launch plus one response task.
- Grouping: Whole-class hook, then pairs or small groups for local inquiry and response design.
- Prep: Choose one local climate example from your rohe and decide whether students will respond with a briefing, poster, or slide.
- Pedagogy: Start with place, build the science, then return to kaitiakitanga and local action.
Resources provided here
- Climate and te taiao framing for the class hook
- Investigation questions for local place-based inquiry
- Briefing scaffold and assessment rubric for the response task
- Teacher adaptation notes and next-step prompts
- Linked curriculum companion page for planning and reporting
Optional local photos, headlines, or data can deepen the lesson, but the core teaching sequence and response scaffold are already provided on this page.
NgÄ WhÄinga Ako / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to explain climate change using science ideas that connect to Aotearoa contexts.
- We are learning to use te taiao, mauri, and kaitiakitanga to deepen environmental analysis.
- We are learning to propose practical responses for a local place, species, or community under climate pressure.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can describe a local climate issue using accurate scientific language.
- I can explain how at least two MÄori concepts help interpret or respond to that issue.
- I can create a response that is practical, evidence-based, and grounded in care for people and place.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
This lesson should be taught with the New Zealand Curriculum made explicit. Use the linked curriculum companion to see the alignment context for planning, moderation, and school reporting, then localise the task for your own programme.
Te taiao and climate science
Te taiao reminds students that climate is not only a graph or a model. It is a living system of relationships between people, water, weather, land, and living things. Traditional MÄori knowledge has long used seasonal cues, environmental indicators, and local observation to understand change in the natural world.
This lesson asks students to hold both frames together: modern climate science and mÄtauranga MÄori as complementary ways of noticing, explaining, and responding to environmental change.
Learning goals
- Describe climate change using scientific language students can explain in their own words.
- Explain how concepts such as kaitiakitanga, mauri, and tohu shape environmental decision-making.
- Use local evidence to discuss how climate change may affect a community, species, or place in Aotearoa.
- Suggest a practical response that connects scientific understanding with environmental guardianship.
Key concepts and language
- Climate change: long-term changes in temperature, weather patterns, and environmental systems.
- Kaitiakitanga: active guardianship and responsibility for the environment.
- Mauri: the life force or vitality present in a person, place, or ecosystem.
- Tohu: signs or indicators in the environment that guide observation and action.
- Whakapapa: relationships and interconnection between people, species, and place.
Suggested lesson sequence
- Hook: Show a recent climate-related event from Aotearoa such as flooding, drought, marine heat, or coastal erosion. Ask: āWho or what feels this change first?ā
- Build the science: Review the greenhouse effect, changing weather patterns, and impacts on ecosystems and communities.
- Bring in te taiao: Introduce kaitiakitanga, mauri, and local observation as ways of reading environmental change.
- Local inquiry: Students identify one place, species, or system near them and discuss how climate pressure might change its mauri.
- Response: Students propose one scientifically sound and culturally grounded action or recommendation.
Group investigation
Prompt: Choose a local place or issue, such as an estuary, school stream, ngahere, coastal path, or urban heat problem. Gather evidence about what climate pressure could look like there and what signs would show the system is under stress.
Investigation questions
- What scientific evidence helps explain the change?
- What tohu or local observations might people notice?
- How could kaitiakitanga guide a response?
- What should happen next at school, whÄnau, or community level?
Assessment idea
Task: Create a short briefing, poster, or slide explaining one local climate issue through both scientific evidence and te taiao concepts.
Ready-to-use response scaffold
- Name the local place, species, or issue you are focusing on.
- Explain the climate pressure using scientific evidence or observations.
- Describe which tohu or local signs people might notice.
- Explain what is happening to the mauri of the place or system.
- Recommend one action that shows kaitiakitanga.
| Criteria | Achieved | Merit | Excellence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Climate science understanding | Identifies the issue and gives basic explanation. | Explains the issue clearly using relevant evidence. | Connects multiple causes/effects with confident scientific reasoning. |
| Use of te taiao concepts | Uses one or two key terms appropriately. | Explains how concepts such as kaitiakitanga or mauri shape the response. | Integrates mÄtauranga MÄori thoughtfully and accurately throughout the task. |
| Local response proposal | Suggests a practical action. | Gives a realistic action linked to the issue. | Proposes a well-justified action that balances science, people, and place. |
Teach this tomorrow
- Choose one local climate issue, image, or recent event to use for the opening hook.
- Print or project the investigation questions and response scaffold from this page.
- Decide whether all groups will investigate the same local place or choose different local contexts.
- Have a simple local map, weather example, or school-place connection ready so the inquiry stays grounded in Aotearoa rather than abstraction.
The core science explanation, te taiao concepts, investigation prompts, and response scaffold are already on the page, so the main preparation is choosing the local context that will make the kaupapa feel immediate.
By the end of lesson one...
- Äkonga can explain one climate pressure using both science ideas and te taiao concepts.
- Each group has identified a local place, species, or system and gathered initial observations.
- You can see whether students are ready to move into a formal briefing or need another round of shared modelling.
- The class is set up to produce a local response proposal in the next lesson.
Teacher notes and adaptation ideas
- Use a local flood, drought, storm, species shift, or coastal change to make the lesson feel immediate.
- Invite students to compare official climate data with local observations from whÄnau or community knowledge.
- For a shorter lesson, run the hook plus investigation only and keep the response task verbal.
- For extension, ask students to compare two responses: one mitigation idea and one adaptation idea.
Support / Tautoko
- Offer sentence starters for explaining scientific causes and effects.
- Use one shared local issue for the whole class before students choose their own context.
- Allow students to complete the response as a spoken mini-briefing before writing.
Extend / WhakawhÄnui
- Ask students to compare mitigation and adaptation responses for the same local issue.
- Challenge students to include local data or a second viewpoint from hapori or whÄnau knowledge.
- Turn the response into a community recommendation or school action proposal.
WhÄnau and hapori connection
Ask Äkonga to kÅrero with whÄnau about one environmental change they have noticed locally over time. Students can bring back a short observation, memory, or concern and compare it with the scientific explanations explored in class.
Useful next steps
- Turn this into a local fieldwork worksheet through Te WÄnanga.
- Adapt the lesson into a science literacy writing task in Creation Studio.
- Pair it with a social studies or geography discussion on community response and resilience.
š Inclusion & Accessibility
ELL / ESOL support: Pre-teach key vocabulary before the lesson. Provide bilingual glossaries where available. Allow responses in home language as a first step.
Neurodiverse learners: Chunk instructions clearly. Offer choice in how students demonstrate understanding. Use visual supports and structured templates.
Scaffold & extension: Offer scaffold tasks and entry-level supports for students who need them. Extend capable learners with open-ended extension challenges.
Curriculum alignment
- English ā Writing: Students will construct and communicate meaning using language features appropriate to purpose and audience.
- Social Sciences: Understand how people participate individually and collectively in response to community challenges.