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New Zealand Curriculum connections 

"You can teach most of the curriculum from a science resource like this. It is made easy by the resource providing curriculum connections. But that is just a starting point."

Joy Kitt, Across Schools Leader of Science

The power of publishing

Publishing activities present opportunities to integrate core curriculum areas such as English and Mathematics. Experiments require students to read, synthesise information, think critically and evaluate as well as consider how their findings can be communicated. Experiments are a powerful tool to develop independent learning, 

Digital skills

By engaging with this resource (with teacher guidance and independently) students are working with a combination of hands on activities and digital media. Publishing, in particular, provides opportunities to work in  digital spaces in order to collaborate and engage with others.

Key Competencies

This resource supports student development of key competencies such as thinking, managing self, and using language, symbols and text. It does this by providing independent learning activities with a structure that includes the requirement to publish.

Key competencies, such as relating to others and participating and contributing, are supported through teacher led activities and by asking two or more students to collaborate on publishing activities.

Curriculum Strand
Achievement aims
Soil, Food and Society connections

SCIENCE

The Nature of Science

Participating and contributing

  • Levels 1-2: Explore and act on issues and questions that link their science learning to their daily living.

  • Level 3-4: Use their growing science knowledge when considering issues of concern to them.

  • Level 3-4: Explore various aspects of an issue and make decisions about possible actions.

Investigating in science

  • Level 1-2: Ask questions, find evidence, explore simple models, and carry out appropriate investigations to develop simple explanations.

  • Level 3-4: Build on prior experiences, working together to share and examine their own and others’ knowledge.

Understanding about science

  • Level 1-2: Appreciate that scientists ask questions about our world that lead to investigations and that open-mindedness is important because there may be more than one explanation.

  • Level 3-4: Appreciate that science is a way of explaining the world and that science knowledge changes over time.

  • Level 3-4: Identify ways in which scientists work together and provide evidence to support their ideas.

Communicating in science

  • Level 1-2: Build language and develop understanding of the many ways the natural world can be represented.

  • Level 3-4: Begin to use a range of scientific symbols, conventions and vocabulary.

  • Student page: Our food garden. Experiments.

  • Teacher page: Our food garden. Sustainable school garden, publishing.

  • Student page: Chain in my lunchbox. Experiments, publishing.

  • Teacher page: Chain in my lunchbox. The wicked problem (publishing).

  • All student pages: Experiments, publishing

  • Teacher page: Our food garden. Learn about soil differences, publishing.

  • Teacher page: Chain in my lunchbox. The wicked problem (publishing).

  • Student page: Plants are Earth's engine. Understanding scientific investigations.

  • Teacher page: Our food garden. Plants need feeding video, learn about soil differences.

  • Student page: Chain in my lunchbox. Developing a hypothesis.

  • Teacher page: Chain in my lunchbox. Stewardship of our land, Aotearoa.

  • All student pages: Experiments, publishing

  • Teacher page: Our food garden. Learn about soil differences, publishing.

  • Teacher page: Chain in my lunchbox. The wicked problem (publishing).

  • Home page, student home page, teacher page Plants are Earth's engine: The story of where our food comes from (nutrient cycle video).

  • Teacher page, Plants are Earth's engine: Nutrient cycle inquiry, related link - H2O on the go.

  • Teacher page Our food garden: Plants need feeding video, sustainable garden activity, learn about soil differences.

SCIENCE

Planet Earth and Beyond

  • Teacher page, Plants are Earth's engine: Nutrient cycle inquiry.

  • Teacher page, Chain in my lunchbox: Stewardship of our land.

SCIENCE

Living World

Life processes

  • Level 1-2: Recognise that all living things have certain requirements so they can stay alive. 

  • Level 3-4: Recognise that there are life processes common to all living things and that these occur in different ways.

Ecology​

  • Level 3-4: Explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to environmental changes, both natural and human-induced.

  • Student page, How can you show plants are alive?

  • Teacher page, Plants are Earth's engine: Nutrient cycle and what do plants need to live inquiries.

  • Teacher page, Chain in my lunchbox: Food chains and food webs

  • Teacher page, Chain in my lunchbox: Stewardship of our land, Tackling the wicked problem publishing activity

SCIENCE

Material World

Chemistry and society​

  • Level 3-4: Relate the observed, characteristic chemical and physical properties of a range of different materials to technological uses and natural processes.

  • Teacher page, Our food garden: Learn about soil differences.

  • Student page, Chain in my lunchbox: What makes my lunch old?

  • Level 2: Understand how people make choices to meet their needs and wants.

  • Level 3: Understand how people make decisions about access to and use of resources.

  • Level 3: Understand how people view and use places differently. 

SOCIAL STUDIES

  • Teacher page, Our food garden: How to make a sustainable garden activity.

  • Teacher page, Chain in my lunchbox: The birth of farming video, Stewardship of our land, Tackling the wicked problem publishing activity

  • Student page, Chain in my lunchbox: publishing the results and findings from the experiments.

  • Student page: Our food garden: publishing the results from the growing seedlings experiment.

MATHEMATICS and STATISTICS

Statistical literacy

  • Level 3: Evaluate the effectiveness of different displays in representing the findings of a statistical investigation or probability activity.

Statistical investigation

  • Level 3: Conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle:

  1. gathering, sorting, and displaying multivariate category and whole:

  2. number data and simple time-series data to answer questions;

  3. identifying patterns and trends in context, within and between data sets;

  4. communicating findings, using data displays.

  • Student page, Chain in my lunchbox: publishing the results and findings from the experiments.

  • Student page: Our food garden: publishing the results from the growing seedlings experiment.

  • Student page, Plants are Earth's engine: publishing the results from the Germinating seeds experiment.

Processes and Strategies Indicators

  • Recognises connections between oral, written, and visual language.

  • Integrates sources of information and prior knowledge confidently to make sense of increasingly varied and complex texts.

  • Thinks critically about texts with increasing understanding and confidence.

  • Monitors, self-evaluates, and describes progress with growing confidence. 

LISTENING, READING and VIEWING

  • Student pages (all): reading decoding and understanding the requirements of the experiments.

  • Publishing (all): providing information in differing formats to express findings and ideas.

  • Teacher page, Plants are Earth's engine: use rich media to show the Nutrient Cycle.

Processes and Strategies Indicators

  • Uses an increasing understanding of the connections between oral, written, and visual language when creating texts.

  • Creates a range of texts by integrating sources of information and processing strategies with increasing confidence.

  • Seeks feedback and makes changes to texts to improve clarity, meaning, and effect.

  • is reflective about the production of own texts: monitors and self-evaluates progress, articulating learning with growing confidence. 

SPEAKING, WRITING and PRESENTING

  • ​Publishing (all): providing information in differing formats to express findings and ideas.

  • Teacher page, Our food garden, The chain in my Lunchbox: telling the story of making a sustainable garden and tackling the wicked problem by providing advice to a stakeholder group. Sharing publications beyond immediate peers can be prefaced with a peer and self review process in order to manage any risk to the school or students reputation.

Interacting systems

  • Level 1-2: Describe how natural features are changed and resources affected by natural events and human actions.

  • Level 3: Investigate the water cycle and its effect on climate, landforms, and life. 

  • Level 3: Appreciate that water, air, rocks and soil, and life forms make up our planet and recognise that these are also Earth’s resources. 

Earth systems​

  • Level 3: Appreciate that water, air, rocks and soil, and life forms make up our planet and recognise that these are also Earth’s resources. 

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