Phase 4 | English — Language Studies

"Applying ethical practices when using and creating digital media, including checking the validity of information, citing sources accurately, representing diverse perspectives, and interacting responsibly in online environments."

Phase 3 | Health and Physical Education — Health Education

"Examining how the brain and body respond to stress and applying strategies that support regulation, recovery, and wellbeing across different situations"

Lesson–Curriculum Map

• Ethical creation (English statement): Maps to Lessons 7 (Words as Taonga), 9 (Misinformation Effect), 12 (Digital Tikanga), and the full creation arc of Lessons 16–18 — students don't just analyse; they produce ethically
• Brain, body & digital wellbeing (Health statement): Maps to Lessons 4 (Body as Sensor), 5 (Science of Screen Time), 6 (Designing for Wellbeing), and 13 (Reclaiming Your Mauri) — how the brain and body respond to digital pressure, and the kaitiakitanga strategies that restore wellbeing and mauri

Learning arc: Students move through three phases — building the whare (understanding their digital environment and its effects on hauora), engaging the community (ethical reasoning, data sovereignty, tikanga), and creating for others (producing a real resource for their community). By Lesson 18 they are not just ethical digital citizens; they are teaching others what that means.

Phase 1: The Whare — Foundation (Lessons 1–6)

• Lesson 1 — What is Our Digital Whenua? Students map the digital environment they already inhabit — apps, platforms, devices, time. The whenua frame makes it concrete: this is the land you live on every day, and it has features, affordances, and risks.
• Lesson 2 — Four Walls: Te Whare Tapa Whā applied to digital spaces. How does each pou — wairua, tinana, hinengaro, whānau — show up online? How does digital life nourish or undermine each wall?
• Lesson 3 — Blueprint for a Healthy Whare: Students design what their ideal digital wellbeing looks like. This becomes the north star they return to when evaluating choices in later lessons.
• Lesson 4 — Body as Sensor: Physical signals of digital overload — posture, sleep quality, eye strain, restlessness. Students learn to read their own tinana as a reliable data source before screen-time statistics.
• Lesson 5 — Science of Screen Time: Evidence-based understanding of what digital habits do to developing brains. Pairs with the media-norms statement — students can now name the mechanisms behind the distortions platforms create.
• Lesson 6 — Designing for Wellbeing: UX thinking applied to personal digital life. Students audit one app or platform: what design choices does it make, and whose wellbeing does it prioritise?

Phase 2: The Community — Ethics and Sovereignty (Lessons 7–15)

• Lesson 7 — Words as Taonga: Language online is taonga — it carries mana, it can harm, it can heal. Students examine their own digital speech before examining others'.
• Lesson 8 — Art of the Upstander: Moving from bystander to active responder in digital harm situations. Practical protocols, not abstract exhortations.
• Lesson 9 — The Misinformation Effect: Critical evaluation of digital information — checking validity, tracing sources, identifying bias. Connects directly to the first curriculum statement's emphasis on accurate citation and diverse perspectives.
• Lesson 10 — Data as Taonga: Personal data as a resource with value and rights. Introduction to Māori Data Sovereignty — the principle that data about Māori people should be controlled by Māori communities.
• Lesson 11 — The Ripple Effect: How digital actions have real-world consequences across time and space. The permanence of digital harm; the potential of digital kindness.
• Lesson 12 — Digital Tikanga: Tikanga Māori as an ethical framework for digital conduct — protocols for consent, respect for tapu in digital spaces, obligation to uphold mana.
• Lesson 13 — Reclaiming Your Mauri: Practices for digital detox and wellbeing restoration. Students identify what genuinely restores their mauri versus what only feels like rest.
• Lesson 14 — Digital Korowai: Cultural identity as protective infrastructure online. The korowai (cloak) metaphor: knowing who you are protects you from who others want you to become.
• Lesson 15 — Digital Rangatiratanga: Sovereignty over your own digital presence — privacy settings, data permissions, algorithmic literacy. Rangatiratanga is not just political; it applies to every click.

Phase 3: The Showcase — Creation and Commitment (Lessons 16–18)

• Lesson 16 — Project Launch: Students begin a community-facing digital citizenship resource — a guide, a video, an infographic, a Digital Tikanga Charter — for a named audience (younger students, whānau, school community).
• Lesson 17 — Creation Workshop: Building and refining the resource. Peer feedback using the same ethical criteria students have been developing all unit.
• Lesson 18 — Digital Showcase: Presenting to an audience and celebrating digital kaitiakitanga. The showcase is the summative evidence — not what students know about digital ethics, but what they made for others with that knowledge.

Beyond the unit: The kaitiakitanga frame doesn't end at L18. Students who have internalised digital sovereignty carry it into every future online interaction. The Digital Tikanga Charter, if made, belongs to the class — it can be posted, shared, and revisited. The point is not compliance but character: students who choose to act as digital kaitiaki even when no one is watching.