Poster Planning
Data Visualisation and Creative Layout
📚 Learning Intentions
- Synthesize complex economic research into punchy, clear headlines.
- Create a mock-up layout that follows visual hierarchy principles (C.H.A.T.).
- Design original charts or diagrams to represent numerical data.
✅ Success Criteria
- I have drafted a rough layout of my poster with all mandatory sections.
- I have completed Section C (Aotearoa Link) of my research notes.
- I have received and acted upon at least one piece of peer feedback.
👩🏫 Teaching Instructions
Focus this session on "Section C" of the research (the NZ Link). Many students will need help finding a local brand or business that deals with their global commodity.
Discuss the 'C.H.A.T.' framework (Color, Hierarchy, Alignment, Text). Show two posters: one cluttered, one clean. Ask: Which one is more convincing?
Work individually on data viz. Help students decide if a pie chart, bar graph, or flow diagram is best for their specific data points.
Conduct a "Speed Feedback" session. 3 minutes per peer, focusing only on the visual layout and flow.
🚀 Haerenga Ako (Lesson Flow)
1. Research: The Aotearoa Link
Completing Section C of the Research Guide. Students must find at least one specific connection between their crop and New Zealand (e.g., Fair Trade importers, local manufacturers, or comparable NZ crops).
2. Mini-Lesson: Data Viz
Turning numbers into pictures. Students practice drawing a simple chart for their "Global Market Value" statistic. Focus on accurate scales and clear labeling.
3. Drafting & Peer Feedback
Students use a blank A3 sheet or digital slide as a "Sandpit". Using the Peer Feedback Form to provide actionable advice to two classmates.
🎯 Tahua Aromatawai (Assessment)
Mātainuku Evidence
- Draft layout shows a clear logical progression from Geography -> Economics -> NZ link.
- Numerical data is represented visually, not just in text.
Mātairea Support
- Teacher check-in: Is the student ready to start production, or is more research needed?
📚 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.