🧭 Week 2: Field Observation & Water Health
Students head outdoors to conduct sensory observations and simple water quality tests (pH, temperature) at their local awa, gathering primary data on environmental health.
Focus Question
What can we observe and measure about the health of our awa?
Ngā Mahi - Week 2 Activities
1. Field Walk: Sensory & Physical Testing (30 mins)
Activity: Visit the local awa. Students use the Field Observation Sheet to record sensory data and physical measurements.
- Record clarity, smell, and presence of litter
- Take pH readings using litmus strips
- Measure and record water temperature
- Identify any visible macroinvertebrates (insects)
2. Classroom Analysis & Data Entry (20 mins)
Activity: Return to class to process findings and transfer data to the Data Table.
- Compare pH results: Are they acidic, neutral, or basic?
- Sketch a quick bar graph of temperature or pH across different sites
- Discuss: "What does this data tell us about the mauri of the water?"
3. Video Resources: Science of Water Health (15 mins)
Activity: Watch videos to deepen understanding of pH and bioindicators.
pH for Kids
Macroinvertebrates
💡 Differentiation Strategies
- Scaffolding: Provide a word bank with kupu + emojis for sensory notes
- Partner Roles: Use reader/recorder/measurer roles to support all learners
- Extension: Compare two micro-sites (e.g., shade vs sun) and note differences
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
🌊 Kaitiakitanga this week — Kaitiaki look first, and look repeatedly
This week the kaitiakitanga is observation as obligation. A kaitiaki notices change over time, which is why the same spot is visited more than once. What this changes: ākonga record what they see before they judge it — including things a testing kit cannot measure, like smell, sound, what is living there, and what the awa looks like after rain.
Unit-wide success criteria
Assess this week against its own criteria above. The unit-wide criteria live once on the unit overview — they are not repeated here, so nobody marks the week against the wrong list.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: A pre-filled observation table with two rows already completed as worked examples. Extension: take a second reading upstream and account for the difference.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach the measurement words — clarity, flow, temperature — with the instrument in hand, not on a slide.
Inclusion: The field trip is the barrier here, not the thinking. Anyone who cannot attend analyses the photographs and data the group brings back, and does the same reasoning.
Ngā tohu o te awa — the signs of the river — is a body of observational knowledge built over generations: what the water looks like, what grows there, what returns and when. This week's instruments do not replace that; they sit alongside it. Where a local kaitiaki can speak to the tohu of this awa, their knowledge is the primary source and yours is the check.
Curriculum alignment
- Science — Ecosystems: Biotic and abiotic factors in ecosystems can affect distribution and abundance of organisms.
- Te Mātaiaho (2025) · Social Sciences · Phase 2 (Years 4–6) · Geography (Knowledge): “People interact with and use places, resources, and environments for personal, social, cultural, and economic reasons.”
- NZC (2007) · Social Studies · Level 3: “Understand how people make decisions about access to and use of resources.”