Assessment tracks progress against this unit's Learning Intentions and Success Criteria (above) and culminates in an authentic capstone — the Society Design Blueprint and pitch presentation. Evidence is gathered during the design process, not only at the end.

Formative — during the unit (Lessons 1–3). Each lesson carries its own Success Criteria; use them as checkpoints as students work:

• Lesson 1 — the society anatomy diagram: can students map the four pillars (people, governance, resources, culture) for two different societies and identify at least one connection between pillars (systems thinking)?
• Lesson 2 — the governance design draft: can students compare two governance models on a structured rubric (speed, fairness, stability, accountability) and justify their chosen governance structure for their society?
• Lesson 3 — the resource allocation plan: can students design a resource system that includes at least one sustainability mechanism grounded in kaitiakitanga (rāhui, mauri, collective responsibility, or reciprocity)?

Summative — the capstone (Lesson 3). Mastery is shown by what students build, not a separate test:

• The complete Society Design Blueprint — integrating all four pillars with a coherent governance system and a kaitiakitanga-grounded resource plan.
• The 3-minute society design pitch to the class as the "society design council" — a defensible, values-driven presentation where groups justify their choices about governance, resource allocation, and the kind of people their society produces.

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

• Entry — go deeper on one governance model. Research an actual iwi or hapū governance system (e.g., the Kīngitanga movement, the Tūhoe self-governance settlement, or a local hapū rūnanga) and compare it to the governance model chosen in Lesson 2. Write a one-page analysis of what the designed society could learn from this real-world system.
• Developing — stress-test with a real crisis. Apply the unit's systems thinking framework: introduce a resource crisis (drought, population surge, or pandemic) to the designed society. Map how the crisis cascades through all four pillars and propose policy responses grounded in the society's chosen governance and kaitiakitanga principles. Present the analysis as a briefing document.
• Mastery — take it to a real audience. Draft a constitution or founding document for the designed society, using tikanga principles as the constitutional framework (as explored in Lesson 1's mātauranga Māori lens). Present the constitution to another class or a school assembly and document the feedback and what would change in the next draft.

The unit moves students from observer to designer to advocate. It opens by making societies visible as systems — not fixed things but interconnected parts where changing one element cascades through everything (Lesson 1). Students deconstruct real societies (hapū and modern Aotearoa NZ) to identify the four pillars, learning that the relationships between pillars matter as much as the pillars themselves. From understanding structure, the arc turns to power: how do different societies make decisions, who benefits, and what are the trade-offs (Lesson 2)? Students examine four governance models — democracy, consensus, autocracy, and rangatira leadership — and must choose and justify one for their own society. The final lesson brings the hardest design challenge: allocating resources fairly and sustainably (Lesson 3). Kaitiakitanga is applied not as heritage but as an active economic framework — rāhui as yield management, mauri as an ecological metric, collective responsibility as an answer to the tragedy of the commons. Everything converges in the capstone: a complete Society Design Blueprint pitched to the class.

Where it leads. The Society Design Blueprint is built to be interrogated, not filed. It hands students a concrete model they can carry into a following unit on community action, an economics inquiry, or a Tiriti o Waitangi co-governance study. The unit's real endpoint is a shift in how rangatahi see the systems around them — not as given, but as designed, and therefore as designable.

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

• ✅ I can identify key systems in a society (governance, economy, environment) and explain how they interact
• ✅ I can apply tikanga and manaakitanga principles when designing governance and resource-sharing systems
• ✅ I can evaluate a designed society against criteria of equity, sustainability, and tino rangatiratanga

Differentiation & Inclusion

Entry-level learners: Provide the society design template as a structured entry point; use role cards to assign specific societal roles (governance lead, resource manager, cultural advisor) so each student has a defined contribution.

ELL / ESOL: Use visual system diagrams for the four pillars; pre-teach civic vocabulary (governance, sovereignty, sustainability) alongside Māori equivalents (rangatiratanga, kaitiakitanga, toitū).

Accelerated learners: Compare their designed society to an existing iwi governance model or write a constitution using tikanga principles as the constitutional framework.

Neurodiverse / Inclusion: Offer design formats across modalities — written, diagrammatic, or oral presentation. Structured design frameworks with clear decision points at each pillar reduce cognitive load while maintaining rigour.