✨ Week 6: Action & Reflection
The culmination of our journey. Students deliver their chosen kaitiaki action, gather evidence of its impact, and reflect on what being a kaitiaki of this awa asks of them.
Focus Question
What impact did our action have, and what are our next steps as kaitiaki?
Ngā Mahi - Week 6 Activities
1. Action Day: Delivery (45 mins)
Activity: Execute the planned action at the awa. Follow roles, safety briefings, and tikanga.
- Pre-brief: Roles, safety/tikanga, and karakia
- Action: Clean-up, planting, or placing signage
- Evidence Capture: Take 3 photos or gather 3 notes/quotes
- Pack down: Gear check and rubbish removal
2. Processing Evidence (15 mins)
Activity: Return to class to document the work and finalize visuals.
- Add evidence points to the final posters
- Write "What we did" bullets to document the process
- Include one community quote gathered during the action
3. Reflection & Celebration (15 mins)
Activity: Reflect individually on the impact of the action and celebrate the class achievement.
- Use Reflection Prompts individually
- Gallery Walk: View the finalized posters and evidence
- Define: "One next step I can take for our awa"
4. Media Anchor — Environmental Stewardship and Protection (The National Academies) (10 mins)
Activity: Revisit the wider kaupapa of kaitiakitanga before completing reflection and next-step planning.
- Pause and discuss: What long-term kaitiaki responsibility does this clip highlight most clearly?
- Transfer task: Include one long-term commitment in your reflection response.
💡 Differentiation Strategies
- Scaffolding: Assign lighter roles (photographer/signer) for support
- Support: Provide individual sentence stems for the reflection
- Extension: Draft a "Thank You" letter to community partners or sponsors
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
🌊 Kaitiakitanga this week — Kaitiakitanga is measured in what continues
This week the kaitiakitanga is accountability. What this changes: reflection asks what actually changed for the awa, not what the class enjoyed — and what one person will still be doing next term. Ākonga also name one thing they got wrong, because a kaitiaki who cannot say that cannot improve.
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 reflection frame: “We claimed… our evidence was… what we could not show was…” Extension: propose the next investigation and say what it would need.
ELL / ESOL: Reflection can be in te reo Māori, English or both; accept the language ākonga think in.
Inclusion: Reflection here is about the evidence and the method, not about feelings. An honest 'it did not work, and here is why' is a strong response, not a weak one.
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.”