Awa W1: Whanaungatanga & Awa Stories

Awa W1: Whanaungatanga & Awa Stories — free unit plan for New Zealand teachers and students. Part of the Te Kete Ako curriculum resource collection.

Awa W1: Whanaungatanga & Awa Stories

🎯 Learning Intentions

✅ Success Criteria

🧭 Lesson Flow

📄 Resources

🎬 Media Anchor

Media Anchor: Why Awa Health Changes

🧰 Differentiation

✅ Checks for Understanding

📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot

Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions

Students will explore awa (river/water) as taonga, developing understanding of kaitiakitanga through water guardianship — connecting indigenous environmental knowledge with scientific and civic action.

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

Differentiation & Inclusion

Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters and graphic organisers for inquiry tasks. Offer entry-level observation activities and extension challenges involving community advocacy or environmental data analysis.

ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key te reo Māori terms (awa, kaitiaki, wāhi tapu, tūrangawaewae). Allow visual and diagrammatic responses. Bilingual glossaries strongly recommended.

Inclusion: Connect to students' own waterways and places of belonging. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured field investigation templates and clear step-by-step inquiry protocols.

Curriculum alignment