Cross-curricular Themes

Marine Reserves – Level 5

Suggested learning outcomes for environmental education
Students will develop:

knowledge and understanding of:

• the interdependence of living things within a marine environment;
• the impact people have had, and can have, on a marine environment;
• the significance of reserves for maintaining natural resources;
• the ethic of kaitiakitanga.

skills, such as:

• communication – arguing clearly about an environmental issue;
• critical thinking – researching, analysing, interpreting, and evaluating information from a variety of sources about the environment;
• decision making – identifying the causes and consequences of environmental problems;
• work and study – taking increasing responsibility for personal learning and work.

attitudes and values, such as:

• a respect for the beliefs and values of others;
• an appreciation of the need for independence of thought on environmental issues;
• an appreciation of and concern for living things;
• an awareness of differing interpretations of value positions and the consequences of these;
• an awareness of the need for individual and group action in maintaining a natural resource.

Achievement objectives from selected curriculum statements that could be used as a focus for the environmental education topic Marine Reserves
These include:

Science
Making Sense of the Living World
Students can:

• investigate and describe structural, physiological, and behavioural adaptations that ensure the survival of animals in their environment (AO2);
• investigate and understand tropic and nutrient relationships between producers, consumers, and decomposers (AO4).

Making Sense of Planet Earth and Beyond
Students can research a national environmental issue and explain the need for responsible and co-operative guardianship of New Zealandís environment (AO4).

English
Written Language: Transactional Writing
Students should write coherent, logical instructions, explanations, and factual accounts, and express and argue a point of view, linking main and supporting ideas and structuring material in appropriate styles in a range of authentic contexts.

Visual Language: Presenting
Using static and moving images, students should use and combine verbal, visual, and dramatic features to communicate information, ideas, or narrative to an identified audience.

Suggested learning experiences that could enable students to meet the learning outcomes of environmental education in association with achievement objectives from selected curriculum statements

• Investigate and describe the adaptations of a range of marine organisms.
• Investigate feeding relationships in the marine environment.
• Take part in cleaning up a local marine environment.
• Conduct a survey to identify any changes in people's attitudes towards the sea as a resource.
• Research existing, proposed, and potential marine reserves within New Zealand.
• Report on the rationale for setting up marine reserves.
• Write a submission arguing for the establishment of a marine reserve in a local area.
• Keep a learning/response journal expressing their thoughts, feelings, and actions during the Marine Reserves topic.

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