Y7 Science: Ecosystems & Kaitiakitanga

🌟 Big Ideas

Ecosystems are networks of interdependent relationships between living things and their environment.
Kaitiakitanga concerns locally held relationships, authority, and obligation at place.
Scientific evidence and locally authorised mātauranga answer related but different questions; neither is a substitute for the other.

🎯 Learning Outcomes

Describe components and interactions in a local ecosystem.
Construct and interpret food chains and food webs.
Explain human impacts and propose kaitiaki actions.
Collect, organise, and present field data ethically.

📖 Lesson Sequence

🪶 Wāhi Ako | Choose Your Lesson Set

This unit has two complete lesson sets covering the same three lessons. They are not alternatives in content — they differ in how much of the lesson is written out for you.

Set A — Full lesson runsheets (Lesson 1 · Lesson 2 · Lesson 3)
Every activity timed and scripted across the 60 minutes — Do Now, evidence boundary, concept build, site mapping and first survey — with learning intentions and success criteria. Use this if you are teaching the unit cold or want the classroom moves written out.

Set B — Compact planning notes (Lesson 1 · Lesson 2 · Lesson 3)
A one-page planner per lesson — objective, three phases, success criteria. Use this if you already know how you want to run the lesson and just want the spine. Set B says so itself: it directs you to Set A for the full run and the learner tools.

Both sets carry the same authority boundary: local kaitiakitanga guidance is used only where the kura supplies an approved source, no learner is asked to disclose whānau knowledge, and no learner is required to lead karakia.

1. Kaitiakitanga & Local Ecosystems

Establish the evidence and authority boundary, then record biotic, abiotic, and interaction data at an accessible site.

2. Food Chains & Food Webs

Model energy flow and interdependence from species recorded in the class field evidence.

3. Human Impacts & Kaitiaki Action

Investigate a local change and draft an evidence-based, permission-aware action plan.

📊 Assessment

Field Journal: Ongoing evidence of observation and reflection.
Food Web Analysis: Demonstrating understanding of relationships.
Action Proposal: Application of evidence with a measurable action and permission pathway.

Assessment boundary: assess the evidence, food-web reasoning, feasibility, and permission pathway. Do not grade a learner's identity, cultural knowledge, whānau relationships, or willingness to disclose them.

🛠️ Resources & Notes

Student Resources

Teacher Notes (PD)

Confirm the site's access conditions and any local cultural guidance before Lesson 1; do not ask ākonga to supply or authenticate that guidance.
Offer a school-ground, photograph, or published-dataset pathway when off-site fieldwork is inaccessible.
Use the four published assessment criteria; whānau are an optional audience, never an assessed requirement.

🧭 Pedagogical Approaches | Ngā Ritenga Whakaako

Local authority and kaitiakitanga

The unit treats kaitiakitanga as a relationship of authority and obligation, not as a synonym for conservation. Local names, histories, tohu, harvest knowledge, or tikanga enter only when supplied or confirmed by mana whenua or the kura's authorised local source.

Empirical Field Inquiry

Engaging students in active field investigation using transects and quadrats. The connection of theory to physical inquiry is the hallmark of Paulo Freire's praxis and John Dewey's experiential learning—where students learn by doing and reflecting on active observations.

Place-Based Environmental Science

Grounding ecological learning in the local taiao (environment) of the schoolyard and community. In alignment with Wally Penetito's place-based education, learning is rooted in the physical and cultural geography students inhabit daily.

📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot

🎯 Curriculum Links | Te Hononga ki te Marautanga

Science Phase 3 — Ecosystems. Every statement below is quoted verbatim from the live Te Mātaiaho curriculum and anchors specific lessons.

"Evaluating ways humans can positively impact ecosystems and communicating actions that support kaitiakitanga (e.g. planting trees, composting, recycling, growing food, planting native species)"

"Energy transfers and nutrients flow through food chains and food webs, through producers, consumers, and decomposers, and including processes such as photosynthesis and respiration."

"Human activity and technology impact the environment."

How the statements map to the arc:

Kaitiakitanga introduction (Lesson 1): Understanding biotic and abiotic factors and starting the schoolyard audit.
Food Chains and Webs (Lesson 2): Constructing models of species interactions and energy transfers.
Human impacts and actions (Lesson 3): Completing an evidence-based action proposal with a measurement and permission pathway.

🎯 Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions

Throughout this 3-lesson unit, students gather local ecological evidence, test a food-web model, and propose a measurable action with an explicit permission pathway:

Lesson 1: Kaitiakitanga & Local Ecosystems — Separate observation, inference, local authority, and permission while identifying biotic and abiotic components.
Lesson 2: Food Chains & Food Webs — Model energy flow through ecosystems by constructing food chains and food webs connecting producers, consumers, and decomposers.
Lesson 3: Human Impacts & Kaitiaki Action — Test a claim against field evidence and draft a measurable action that identifies who must approve it.

✅ Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

Students demonstrate progress and mastery through the following lesson-specific indicators:

Lesson 1: Kaitiakitanga & Local Ecosystems
✓ I can distinguish an observation from an assumption or a claim that needs a local source.
✓ I can identify at least 5 components and 3 interactions in the selected ecosystem.
Lesson 2: Food Chains & Food Webs
✓ I can define and identify producers, consumers, and decomposers in a local ecosystem.
✓ I can construct food chains and combine them into a class food web to show energy transfer.
Lesson 3: Human Impacts & Kaitiaki Action
✓ I can compile field observations into a clear, challengeable claim.
✓ I can write a one-page Action Proposal naming a realistic response, a measurement, and the relevant decision-maker.

🤝 Differentiation & Inclusion

Scaffold support: For entry-level learners, provide pre-structured field journals with pictures of common flora and fauna, and pre-formatted food chain templates.

ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key scientific and cultural vocabulary (abiotic, biotic, food web, kaitiakitanga). Pair students with language buddies for peer support during the field audit.

Accelerated learners: Challenge students to research complex ecological relationships (e.g. biological control of invasive weeds) or analyse local council ecological data.

Inclusion: Offer multiple formats for the final Action Proposal (written proposal, visual poster, or audio/video recording).

🚀 Whakawhānui — Extension Pathways

Three pathways of genuine depth — each extends real unit substance rather than adding busy work, and each ends in a tangible deliverable.

Entry-level — Local Flora Survey. Map the locations and count of one native tree species across the schoolgrounds, describing its abiotic requirements (light, soil).
Developing — Food Web Interdependence. Model a scenario where one key consumer in the Lesson 2 food web declines due to predator impacts, and write a report explaining the cascaded effects on other species.
Mastery — Action Plan Pitch. Refine the Lesson 3 Action Proposal for a real decision-maker. The kaiako checks the evidence, permission pathway, and contact plan before anything is sent outside the kura.

🔗 Te Ara Whanaketanga — Unit Progression & Next Steps

This unit moves students from observation to energy-flow modelling to local action. Lesson 1 separates scientific evidence from local authority and unknowns while the class records biotic and abiotic factors at an accessible site. Lesson 2 builds and tests a food web from those records. Lesson 3 turns the field evidence into a challengeable claim and a measurable action proposal that names the relevant decision-maker.

Where it leads: This unit builds the field evidence, model construction, and causal reasoning needed for Phase 4 ecosystem inquiries. Later units can extend the same evidence chain through biodiversity measurement, restoration trials, and longer-term monitoring.

Pedagogical Foundations | Ngā Tūāpou Akoranga

Ecosystem science and mātauranga Māori can inform the same decision without becoming interchangeable. Science supplies testable models and measurements; locally held mātauranga can supply inherited observations, relationships, authority, and obligations. The sequence keeps both provenance and limits visible.

Kaupapa Māori

Authority changes the task

Ākonga do not invent local cultural content or get graded for possessing it. The kaiako verifies sources, records what remains unknown, and makes permission part of the action proposal.

Place-Based Education

Wally Penetito

Penetito’s place-based approach requires students to come to know a specific rohe rather than “the environment” in the abstract. This unit therefore grounds its science in an accessible local site and keeps any locally held names, relationships, or obligations tied to an approved source.

Progressive Education

John Dewey

Dewey’s argument that genuine learning requires real problems in real environments — not laboratory simulations of problems — explains the unit’s emphasis on fieldwork, observation in actual ecosystems, and student-designed kaitiakitanga actions. A student who has investigated a real stream and designed a real intervention understands ecosystems in a way a textbook student cannot.

→ Explore all theorists at Te Whare Ako — Teaching Theory