Climate Change & Kai
Environmental Shifts and Food Security in Aotearoa
📚 Learning Intentions
- Identify the specific climate threats (drought, flood, heat) to food production in the Waikato.
- Analyze longitudinal rainfall data to identify trends and anomalies.
- Demonstrate kaitiakitanga by proposing local adaptation strategies for kai security.
✅ Success Criteria
- I can explain the impact of one extreme weather event on current supermarket prices.
- I can extract and graph rainfall trends from a raw NIA dataset.
- I can write a news report that balances climate anxiety with actionable solutions.
👩🏫 Teaching Instructions
Connect this to the recent weather events (e.g., Cyclone Gabrielle) that students might remember. Use local context to make the global concept of climate change feel personal.
Project a news report about the "lettuce shortage" or similar price spikes. Connect this 'scarcity' to specific weather events on farms.
Guide the Numeracy session carefully. Ensure students understand how to read 'Departure from Normal' in rainfall charts.
Peer review the News Articles. Check: Does the headline grab attention? Is the evidence used correctly?
🚀 Haerenga Ako (Lesson Flow)
1. Case Study: The Mighty Waikato
Students use the Waikato River Handout to map the journey of water and kai. They identify key dairy and vegetable production zones and their vulnerability to flood.
2. Numeracy: Reading the Clouds
Data analysis using the Rainfall Data Sheet. Students plot the last 12 months of local rainfall and compare it to historical averages.
Kaiako Moves
- Ask: What does 'variability' mean for a farmer trying to plan their crops?
3. Literacy: Newsroom Challenge
Using the News Article Template, students report on the intersection of climate and kai. They must include at least one piece of numerical data from the previous activity.
🎯 Tahua Aromatawai (Assessment)
Mātainuku Evidence
- Successful completion of the Rainfall Graph with all axes labeled.
- News article identifies both a problem and a potential adaptation strategy.
Mātairea Support
- Verbal explanation of how more rain might actually lead to *less* food (e.g., rot, erosion).
📚 Ngā Rauemi (Resources)
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to investigate the intersection of kai (food), culture, and climate — exploring how mātauranga Māori approaches to food production, preservation, and distribution offer powerful responses to contemporary food security and climate challenges in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can explain how traditional Māori kai practices (maramataka, kūmara cultivation, rāhui) embody ecological knowledge and food security principles.
- ✅ Students can connect kai culture and climate scarcity to contemporary community action and food sovereignty movements.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide graphic organisers that map traditional kai practices to modern food security concepts at the entry level. Offer extension tasks asking students to research a specific iwi's traditional food system and evaluate its contemporary relevance, or to investigate a local food sovereignty initiative.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach domain vocabulary (food sovereignty, food security, kaitiakitanga, rāhui, maramataka) using visual diagrams and real-world examples. Draw connections to students' own cultural food traditions — these are valid entry points into the unit's themes. Allow oral or visual presentation of learning as alternatives to written tasks.
Inclusion: Kai is a universal human experience — all students have a relationship with food, seasonality, and sharing. Neurodiverse learners benefit from concrete, hands-on engagement with these concepts (e.g., examining a kūmara, mapping seasonal foods). Acknowledge diverse economic circumstances sensitively when discussing food security. Choice in how students demonstrate understanding (written, visual, oral) supports inclusive assessment.
Mātauranga Māori lens: The maramataka — the Māori lunar calendar — is one of Aotearoa's most sophisticated environmental data systems, encoding centuries of ecological observation about planting, harvesting, fishing, and weather patterns. Kūmara cultivation in pre-colonial Aotearoa was a feat of agricultural knowledge adapted to a new climate. Rāhui (temporary resource restrictions) is indigenous resource management — conservation before conservation. Kaitiakitanga frames the relationship between people and kai not as extraction but as reciprocal guardianship. These are not historical curiosities — they are living solutions to contemporary problems.
Prior knowledge: Students benefit from foundational understanding of climate change and food systems. No specialist mātauranga Māori knowledge required for entry-level engagement — the unit builds this knowledge progressively.
Curriculum alignment
- Place and Environment — Social Studies: Understand how people's management of resources reflects their values and their view of sustainability — and how mātauranga Māori frameworks provide models for sustainable resource management.
- Ecology — Living World: Understand how human activities and natural factors affect the distribution and abundance of organisms; evaluate the impact of changes on ecosystem health and food systems.