Tirohanga Whānui | Overview
Lessons 1–6 gave students six ways of understanding food scarcity: as an economic concept, a design problem, a trade system, a colonial failure, a personal trade-off, and a climate threat. Lesson 7 launches the assessment: students apply this toolkit to investigate a specific food-security challenge in Aotearoa, and present their findings as a poster. The poster must identify a problem, explain a cause, describe a community response, and evaluate its effectiveness.
Ngā Whāinga Ako | Learning Intentions
- Understand the assessment task requirements and success criteria.
- Choose a specific, researchable food-security topic connected to unit content.
- Generate three focused research questions that will guide their investigation.
Ngā Paearu Angitū | Success Criteria
- Students can describe the poster task in their own words, including all four required elements.
- Students have chosen a topic that is specific (a named community or place), connected to unit vocabulary (scarcity, trade-off, structural cause, collective action), and researchable in two lessons.
- Students have written three research questions that are answerable from real evidence — not yes/no questions, but "how", "why", and "what" questions.
The Assessment Brief: Food Security Poster
15 minsWhat it is: A teacher-led walkthrough of the assessment task. Unpack the requirements together before students choose their topics — clarity now prevents wasted research later.
The task
Students create a poster that answers the question: "What is one food-security challenge facing a community in Aotearoa, and what is being done about it?"
The poster must include all four elements:
- The problem: Describe the food-security challenge, using evidence (a statistic, a specific event, or a named impact).
- The cause: Explain what structural cause makes this challenge happen. Connect to at least one concept from the unit (scarcity, trade-off, structural cause, interdependence, climate).
- The response: Describe one community or organisation already responding to this challenge. Name who is involved and what they do.
- The evaluation: Explain one thing the response achieves and one thing it cannot solve. Be honest — no response solves everything.
Model a worked example together
Walk through one example: "Hawke's Bay horticulture after Cyclone Gabrielle (2023). Problem: horticulture damage estimated at around $1.5 billion, and higher produce prices for shoppers. (Estimates vary widely by what is counted and over what period — see Lesson 6. If you use a figure, say which estimate it is.) Cause: climate change creating more intense cyclones as a structural driver of scarcity. Response: grower collective replanting and flood-resilience engineering. Evaluation: replanting succeeds in the long run, but does not help families facing higher prices now — the opportunity cost falls on consumers, not growers."
Choose Your Topic
15 minsWhat it is: Students select their inquiry topic. The topic must be specific enough to be researchable in one lesson but significant enough to connect to the unit's conceptual vocabulary.
Run it
- Display the topic menu (3 min): project or share a list of suggested topics — students may also propose their own:
- Māra kai community gardens in South Auckland and Māngere
- Mana Kai food rescue operations in Wellington or Christchurch
- Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei's food sovereignty programme in Auckland
- Hawke's Bay primary sector recovery after Cyclone Gabrielle
- Canterbury drought and dairy farming water trade-offs
- Kaikoura fishing industry after the 2016 earthquake (food access disruption)
- Pacific Island whānau food insecurity in South Auckland
- KiwiHarvest food rescue: reducing waste to increase access
- Independent selection (8 min): students choose one topic. They write a one-sentence explanation of why they chose it and how it connects to at least one lesson from the unit.
- Teacher approval (4 min): circulate and approve topics. Check that: the topic is specific (a named community, not "food poverty in general"), it's researchable (real organisations or events exist), and the spread across the class covers a range of topics.
First Research Questions
25 minsWhat it is: Students use their confirmed topic to generate three research questions, then begin structured planning using the inquiry frame. Good research questions make Lesson 8 productive — vague questions make it directionless.
Run it
- Model good and poor questions (5 min):
- Poor question: "Is food poverty bad?" (yes/no, no research needed)
- Poor question: "What is food poverty?" (too broad, no community focus)
- Good question: "What specific impact did Cyclone Gabrielle have on apple prices for Auckland families?" (specific, evidence-based, answerable)
- Good question: "How does the Māra Kai network in Māngere reduce food insecurity for Pacific whānau?" (specific community, describable mechanism)
- Individual question writing (12 min): students write three questions using the Inquiry Planning Frame. One question about the problem (how serious / who is affected), one about the structural cause (why does this happen?), and one about the community response (what does the response actually do?).
- Pair feedback (5 min): pairs swap questions. Feedback prompt: "For each question, can you name a source that might answer it? If not, the question might be too broad."
- Refine (3 min): students improve at least one question based on feedback.
Commit: Topic and Questions Confirmed
5 minsWhat it is: Students hand in their approved topic, one-sentence connection to the unit, and three research questions. This becomes their research contract for Lesson 8.
Run it
Students complete at the bottom of their Inquiry Planning Frame: "My topic is ___. I chose it because ___. In Lesson 8 I need to find evidence for: (1) ___, (2) ___, (3) ___." Collect — review overnight to catch any topics that are too broad or too narrow before the research session.
🎯 Curriculum Alignment
Focus for this lesson: People and groups make decisions to meet their needs and wants.
This is Te Kete Ako's own framing of the lesson's focus, not a quotation from Te Mātaiaho. The unit's verified curriculum statements are on the curriculum alignment page.
The assessment task requires students to investigate real decisions — by individuals, communities, and organisations — made in response to food-security challenges. The four-element structure (problem, cause, response, evaluation) mirrors the analytical framework students have built across the unit's six content lessons.
📦 Materials & Resources
- Assessment Task Sheet — one per student, annotated during the briefing.
- Inquiry Planning Frame — one per student, becomes their Lesson 8 research contract.
- Access to devices for a brief topic suitability check (optional; mainly for students proposing their own topic).
📊 Assessment Framework
This lesson is the setup for the summative assessment. Formative check: do students' three research questions cover all four poster elements? If a student has no question about the cause or the evaluation, they may miss those elements in the poster.
- At support level: students choose from the suggested topic list and write questions with kaiako support.
- At expected level: students choose and justify a topic independently and write three answerable, specific questions.
- At extension level: students propose their own topic, justify the connection to two unit concepts, and write questions that target structural causation rather than surface description.
🚀 Extension Activities
Students who finish early can begin a preliminary search for evidence sources — identifying one news article, one organisation website, and one government or NGO report that might address one of their research questions. This gives them a head start for Lesson 8's research session.
🔗 Unit Progression
Lesson 7 transitions the unit from direct teaching to student inquiry. Students bring six lessons of conceptual vocabulary to a real investigation. Lesson 8 provides structured research time; Lesson 9 completes production and leads the unit reflection. The poster format is deliberately public-facing — it should communicate to someone who hasn't studied the unit, using evidence and unit vocabulary.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Pre-lesson: review the Lesson 6 exit prompts (students' first topic ideas) and prepare the topic menu. Check that the suggested topics are still current and that you have at least one local example relevant to your school's community.
Topic approval: the key teacher move in this lesson is confirming topic specificity. "Food poverty in New Zealand" is not a topic — "Pacific Island whānau food insecurity in South Auckland" is. Push for specificity at the approval stage.
Scaffold support: for students who struggle with question-writing, offer a fill-in-the-blank frame: "Why does ___ [community] face ___ [specific problem]?" and "What does ___ [named organisation] do to reduce ___?"
ESOL / ELL: allow students to write their questions in their first language first, then translate. The conceptual work is in the specificity, not the English vocabulary.
Mātauranga Māori lens: if students choose a kai topic involving Māori communities (māra kai, Ngāti Whātua food sovereignty, maramataka), remind them to approach the evidence with respect — cite specific iwi or community organisations rather than generalising. "Māori food practices" is not a researchable topic; "Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei's urban marae kai programme" is.