📚 Unit Plans → 📜 Unit 9: Environmental Mātauranga → 📖 Week 1: Environmental Detective
Years 7–8 Pūtaiao / Science

Unit 9: Environmental Mātauranga — Protecting Our Taiao

"How Do We Fix What's Broken in Our Environment?" — A 6-week journey where students use both mātauranga Māori and modern science to take real action on local environmental problems.

U Overview
1 Environmental Detective
2 Water Health Check
3 Biodiversity Count
4 Climate Data Analysis
5 Solution Testing
6 Action Implementation
Unit 9 · Week 1

🔍 Environmental Detective — Investigating What's Wrong

Students become environmental detectives, using both Mātauranga Māori observation methods and scientific tools to identify specific problems they can measure and address at their school.

Focus Question

What environmental problems can we actually see, measure, and fix right here at school?

📚 Curriculum Links

  • Science: Environmental systems, human impacts, systematic observation
  • Social Studies: How people interact with and care for environments
  • Mātauranga Māori: Tohu o te taiao — reading environmental indicators
  • Mathematics: Measurement, data recording, baseline documentation

🎯 Learning Intentions

  • Identify specific environmental problems using systematic observation
  • Connect Mātauranga Māori environmental knowledge with scientific investigation methods
  • Select one realistic environmental problem your team can investigate and address
  • Establish a documented baseline for Week 6 impact measurement

✅ Success Criteria

  • I can identify and document environmental problems with specific, measurable observations
  • I can explain how Mātauranga Māori indicators differ from — and complement — Western scientific methods
  • I can work with my team to commit to one problem and record a clear "before" baseline

🗣️ Kupu / Vocabulary

  • kaitiakitanga / guardianship, tohu / indicator
  • taiao / natural world, kaumātua / elder
  • baseline, evidence, observation, severity

🎥 Media Anchor

After watching — discuss:

1

Which Mātauranga Māori observation method from the video would improve your environmental detective work — and why?

2

What evidence will you gather first to make sure you're investigating the right problem?

Māori Systems: Kaitiakitanga · 8 mins

Ngā Mahi — Week 1 Activities

1

Hook: Environmental Crime Scene

15 min

Show photos of environmental problems — polluted streams, dying plants, litter, extreme weather damage. The question is simple: "If you were an environmental detective, where would you start?"

Kaitiaki — guardians of the taiao — have always observed environmental change closely. What would a kaitiaki notice here that a scientist with instruments might miss?
2

Environmental Crime Scene Walk

30 min

Use the Environmental Detective Checklist to systematically investigate the school grounds.

  • Form detective teams of 3–4 students, each assigned a different zone (sports fields, gardens, buildings, waterways)
  • Look for water issues, waste problems, biodiversity loss — record what you observe, not what you think you know
  • Take photos and rate severity of each problem: How bad is it? How measurable is it? Could we actually do something?
  • Record specific observations — "brown patches on 3m² of lawn near the drain" not "the grass looks bad"
💡 Two lenses: For each problem, note both what a scientist would measure (count, test, photograph) AND what tohu / Mātauranga Māori indicators you observe (changes in bird behaviour, unusual plant growth, water colour/smell).
3

Problem Ranking & Voting

20 min

Use the Problem Ranking Cards to vote democratically on which problems to focus on.

  • Each student gets 3 voting dots
  • Vote on two criteria: How urgent is this? and Can we realistically address it in 5 weeks?
  • The top vote-getters become your team's focus problems — one per team
4

Kaumātua Interview Planning

15 min

Introduce the Kaumātua Interview Guide and plan respectful interviews with community elders about the environment.

  • Discuss proper tikanga for interviewing kaumātua — approach, introductions, listening, acknowledgement
  • Identify community members who might share Mātauranga Māori knowledge about your site
  • Prepare specific questions about what this place was like before, and what tohu they use to read the environment
  • Arrange interviews through proper cultural protocols — don't just show up
What questions would help us understand how this environment has changed over time — and what it should look like when it's healthy?
5

Team Formation & Baseline Documentation

10 min

Form environmental action teams around the highest-voted problems. Each team commits to one problem — and documents the "before" state that Week 6 will measure against.

  • Sign a team commitment: problem chosen, why it matters, what success looks like
  • Take your "before" photo — this becomes your Week 6 comparison baseline
  • Record one quantitative measure: how many? how big? how often?

💡 Differentiation

Tautoko / Lower Support

Pre-teach environmental vocabulary with images. Provide observation sentence starters. Pair with a confident peer for the Crime Scene Walk. Use the Checklist as a structured scaffold.

Whakaara / Extension

Research the same environmental problem in another NZ context or globally. Investigate the connection to climate change data. Begin drafting a solution hypothesis before Week 2.

Hononga Ahurea / Cultural Connection

Frame all observations through kaitiakitanga from the start. Connect the voting process to how iwi historically made decisions about taiao management. Invite local hapū members to join the Crime Scene Walk.

Next session (Week 2): Teams begin their Water Health Check investigation. Ensure kaumātua interviews are scheduled before then — they inform which water tohu to look for.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot Kaiako / Teacher

Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions

Students will explore how Mātauranga Māori and Western science offer complementary frameworks for environmental observation — developing the habit of reading landscapes through both lenses from the very first lesson.

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

  • Students can identify environmental problems with specific, measurable observations (not vague generalisations)
  • Students can describe at least one Mātauranga Māori tohu / indicator relevant to their chosen problem
  • Students have a documented baseline — photos, measurements, team commitment — ready for Week 6 comparison

Baseline Documentation is Critical

Activity 5's "before" documentation is not optional. Week 6 impact measurement entirely depends on having a clear, specific, comparable baseline from today. Push teams to be concrete: a count, a measurement, a dated photo. Vague baselines make Week 6 unmeasurable.

Mātauranga Māori Lens

From the first lesson, students should understand that Mātauranga Māori is a systematic, centuries-old framework for reading the taiao — not a supplement to "real" science. Ngā tohu o te taiao (signs of the natural world) encoded in place names, whakataukī, and kaumātua knowledge represent accumulated environmental data that no instrument replicates.

The kaumātua interviews planned in Activity 4 are the linchpin of the unit. If they don't happen before Week 2, the Mātauranga Māori thread goes missing from the whole inquiry.

Differentiation & Inclusion

ELL / ESOL: The Crime Scene Walk is naturally low-language-barrier — observation and photography require little language. Use photos as the primary evidence record for ELL students; they can caption in their own language first.

Inclusion: Ensure the zone assigned to each team accounts for physical accessibility. Students who cannot access outdoor areas can lead the photo documentation analysis from inside.

Prior knowledge: No environmental science background assumed. The video in Activity 1 and the Checklist scaffold both scientific and Mātauranga Māori observation methods from scratch.

Hononga Marautanga — Curriculum Alignment

  • Ecosystems — Knowledge: Human activity and technology impact the environment.
  • Ecosystems — Knowledge: Humans can support the health of the environment (e.g. composting, reusing, producing less waste, planting native plants).
  • 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.