📚 Unit Plans → 🌍 Y7 Science: Ecosystems & Kaitiakitanga → 📖 Lesson 3: Human Impacts & Kaitiaki Action (Y7)
Year 7 Pūtaiao / Science

Lesson 3: Human Impacts & Kaitiaki Action

Use field evidence and approved public sources to explain a local ecosystem change, then propose a measurable action with the right permission pathway.

Do NowWhat changed at our site?8 mins EvidenceField data into a claim16 mins TraceCause, and who it reaches12 mins PlanAn action a Year 7 can actually do14 mins SubmitPeer-check and finish Part D10 mins

Tirohanga Whānui | Overview

The unit closes by turning observation into responsibility. Students take the field data they gathered, identify what is changing at their site, trace it back through the food web they built in Lesson 2, and propose something they could actually do about it. The proposal is assessed on whether it would work, not on how ambitious it sounds. A small action that a Year 7 class can genuinely carry out is worth more than a grand plan nobody will start.

Ngā Whāinga Ako | Learning Intentions

  • Use your own field evidence to describe a change at a local site.
  • Trace that change through the food web to the species it affects.
  • Propose an ecosystem action that is realistic, measurable, and explicit about whose permission is required.

Ngā Paearu Angitū | Success Criteria

  • My claim about the site is supported by data I collected, not by what I assumed before we went.
  • I can name at least two species affected and explain the pathway between them.
  • My action names who does it, what they do, when, and how we would know it worked.

Do Now: What did we actually see?

8 mins

Run it

  1. Recall (3 min): "Without looking at your journal, name one thing at our site that surprised you."
  2. Check (5 min): now open the field journals. "Does your evidence support what you just said, or did you remember it that way?" Naming the gap between impression and evidence is the scientific habit this lesson is built on.

Evidence: From notes to a claim

16 mins

Run it

  1. Organise (6 min): groups turn their raw field notes into something readable — a tally table, a simple bar graph, a labelled photo, a sketch map with counts.
  2. State a claim (5 min): one sentence in the form "At our site, ___ is happening, and our evidence is ___."
  3. Challenge (5 min): swap with another group. Their job is to ask one hard question: is the evidence enough? Could something else explain it? Did we only look in one spot?

Kaiako move: a group whose data does not show a problem has produced a valid result. Say so out loud. Students will otherwise invent a problem to have something to write about, which is the exact habit this unit should be breaking.

Trace: Through the web

12 mins

Run it

  1. Bring back the web (3 min): put Lesson 2's class food web up again.
  2. Locate (4 min): where in the web does your observed change enter? A change in water clarity, plant cover, or the presence of an introduced predator all enter at different points.
  3. Follow it out (5 min): trace two steps. Which species feel it that are not obviously connected? This is the same move as Lesson 2's "pull one out", now with real local evidence instead of cards.

Plan: An ecosystem action

14 mins

Draft it

Four questions, answered concretely:

  1. Who carries it out? Our class, the whole kura, whānau, or do we need to ask someone else?
  2. What exactly happens? “Plant natives” is not yet a plan. Name the locally approved species, quantity, site, and method only after the relevant decision-maker or adviser confirms them.
  3. When, and how often? Once, or every term?
  4. How would we know it worked? Name the measurement you would take again in a year.

Authority check

Before any action on a site: whose land or awa is it, and who needs to be asked? If your action involves a waterway, a wāhi tapu, or planting, the answer is that someone must be consulted first. Building that step into the plan is part of the assessment, not an obstacle to it.

Submit: Summative task

10 mins

Action Proposal

Complete Part D of the field journal as a one-page proposal. Pair-check that the claim, action, measurement, and permission pathway are all explicit, revise, and submit by the end of the lesson. A later presentation is optional enrichment, not part of the required three-lesson assessment.

Assessed on four criteria: scientific validity (the claim follows from the evidence) · feasibility (this class could actually start it) · authority and permission (the relevant decision-maker is named and locally supplied guidance is followed) · positive impact (it would measurably help the system studied).

Extend: identify one plausible failure condition for the proposal, then revise the action or measurement so the class could detect and respond to it.

Differentiation

More support: use the claim sentence stem above and Part D of the field journal, where the four action-plan questions are already headed.

Extension: ask what would need to be true for the action to fail, then design around it. Anticipating failure is a more advanced move than proposing success.

If field data is thin (weather, time, access): use a published local dataset from your regional council instead. The reasoning is the assessed skill, not the fieldwork.

Curriculum alignment

"Evaluating ways humans can positively impact ecosystems and communicating actions that support kaitiakitanga (e.g. planting trees, composting, recycling, growing food, planting native species)"
"Humans are part of ecosystems and can change them through their actions (e.g. clearing land, growing crops, changing waterways, planting trees, restoring habitats)."

Ākonga organise their own field data, test a claim, trace two consequences through the food web, and specify a measurable action with a permission pathway.