What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? Literacy - reading books about bio-versify in creek water Numeracy - counting and recording data - comparisons Te Reo Maori - learning Maori names

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? Looking after our treasure - Cockle Bay Domain

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? Water ways connecting life - corridors of life through city

“I was lucky enough to go on Blake Inspire for Teachers where we carried out similar investigations so felt confident with some field experience - but paperwork in kit also helpful - took my class of year 3s to Cockle Bay Domain to explore area checking creek which runs through domain but also identifying trees and insects also looking at bio-diversity using metre squares (insects and plants) as well as bucket of creek water set out in tray for bio-diversity in creek water (this was a favourite) - tested for Ph level also - children in small groups of 5 with parent helper as well as teacher overseeing - linked to books back at school - connected series + more junior books such as ‘The Boatman’ Having kit gave me the extra push to go ahead with field investigation Bridget Bear CockleBay School”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? Maths – gathering data Reading – read a range of water related texts, including about NZ rivers, the importance of water to Maori and the water cycle.

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? Investigating a range of water sources in order to make comparisons. We could also do much more in terms of the collection of data and the mathematical side. We had to move swiftly onto other topics. We could also link with the excellent Christchurch City

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? Robust discussion was had around: The condition of our rivers and actions that could take place in order for them to be preserved. The sanctity of water and how important it was (is) to our tangata whenua – how creation stories and identity are inextri

“An outstanding resource – visually appealing, packed with information and relevant. Unfortunately we had to compress our year somewhat, so the resource was not exploited to the level we would have wanted to, so are keen to use it to greater in the future. The children gained an understanding of some of the concepts around water testing.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? This was a great kit for creating rich tasks. A lot of authentic learning.

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? We are looking at becoming an enviroschool, so this is a good first step.

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? A lot of our water ways are getting more polluted and it is talked about a lot in our district. I frequently ask the question: ";When you awa dries up and no longer holds water, can you still use it in your mihi?";

“Great Kit. We are lucky that we have water all around us, some of it is spring fed and pristine. The students liked the practical part of it and some got a little too enthusiastic about getting wet. The invertebrate classification was awesome.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? My students developed an understanding of the links between science and maths, and also statistics and number. We also read a number of journal and Connected articles about the water cycle, and water testing, so this also linked in literacy and Te Ao Māor

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? I would love to have the opportunity to do this kit again, and possibly multiple times in the year (seasonally?). When we managed to finally get our visit done, we had had a week's worth of rain the week before (the rain that went on to flood the Hawkes B

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? We did quite a bit of revision on the water cycle itself, and freshwater systems before launching into the kit, and I think this helped my students understand the importance of freshwater systems in general to the population, but also the cultural link. I

“This kit has amazing resources, both physical and in terms of links and other digital resources. In particular, the links to the Te Ao Māori aspects and how rivers and waterways are understood were incredibly useful. The activities that the kit requires are interesting and broad-ranging. In this respect, it was very good, but I also found it quite over-whelming to get my own head around all 8 of the different activities so I could understand them sufficiently to then break them down for my students. This could also be a reflection of the fact that I am only in my second year of teaching, so still very much developing my own teaching skills. At my school, we also ended up being incredibly time poor in both Terms 3 and 4 (Term 3 got snarled up with speeches and inquiry and information writing, both topics that I had other deadlines for, and then in Term 4, a collaborative elections inquiry ran significantly over time, so I ended up squeezing this into a period of time after that, and before we went to school camp. Apologies for these timetabling issues at our end, and how it has meant our review and feedback is very late. I really like how cross-curricular this kit is, and how it fits with so well with science, maths, social sciences, kaitiakitanga and place-based learning. It is broad and rich in it's learning opportunities, and in it's group work opportunities for students. A down-side for me was that I struggled to get my own head around things, and especially coverting the results into scores (in particular for the Streambed composition and Gravel vs Sediment activities). The maths was also quite above the level of where my Year 6 students are currently at (we have also not covered as much maths as usual, with Lockdown), but I think they understand the link between science and maths and how statistics can have another practical application, so this was valuable. The stream that we used for our study is very local to our school and many of my students' homes. It also runs alongside the Intermediate and College that most are heading to next year and beyond, so it will continue to be of relevance to them. I think it would have been great to have the opportunity to do this kit earlier in the year, and then have time to repeat it, either at the same stream, or with a different waterway, so that the activities are known and students can become more comfortable with them, or with more than one, and so that results can be compared and discussed, but this would also take a large chunk of time. I believe that in a normal year, when Lockdown has not taken a chunk of the classroom time, and covid impacting on what visits and activities we could do, this kit would have ended up being rated 5 stars by me, as I could have spent more time on it and the students learning would have been more continuous and in-depth. Thank you to Dairy NZ and School Kit for all your support and expertise! I look forward to doing this again with another class in the future, now that I feel much more confident with it myself.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? Unfortunately due to a number of factors I was unable to utilise this resource into my programme. I apologise for being unable to provide a review for this resource.

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? Unfortunately due to a number of factors I was unable to utilise this resource into my programme. I apologise for being unable to provide a review for this resource.

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? Unfortunately due to a number of factors I was unable to utilise this resource into my programme. I apologise for being unable to provide a review for this resource.

“Unfortunately due to a number of factors I was unable to utilise this resource into my programme. I apologise for being unable to provide a review for this resource.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? As mentioned above, I taught this unit as a literacy programme, rather than a science programme. THe areas blended together perfectly. We learned about procedural texts which, as you can imagine, worked perfectly with the step by step resource cards you p

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? As mentioned already, I feel inspired to build science into my writing/reading programmes. In addition, we spent a further week looking at the impact human's choices have on the health of a river - the kids were fascinated!

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? My school's cultural narrative involves a river, so the students were able to relate the unit to our cultural narrative. Other than that, we didn't really dig into the cultural significance all that much, regretfully.

“This was a well-written, well-resourced unit that the year 7/8 students really loved. We spent two solid weeks (during literacy times) leading up to the visit, then a further week writing up our experiments. This year, our school focus is writing and, as a result, we did a school-wide survey just a couple of weeks ago. A large proportion of my students hailed this writing unit as their favourite of the year (over Get NZ Writing and As I Saw it, amongst other ignitions). It has inspired me to build science into more literacy lessons, as we get so little time to explore science during the busy week. I have kept the resources and fully intend to repeat the activity in future years.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? We talked about our local community. There were council workers there building a wooden bridge when we were running our experiments. Neighbours came over to speak with us and talk about what the kids were doing.

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? Different kinds of fish in the local area and invertebrates.

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? It made the students realise that our local waterways are precious to us and how we need to continue to be active in keeping them clean and knowing how to improve our water resources.

“The students loved going down to the local stream and testing the water quality with all our equipment. We were very impressed with all the resources. They had so much fun. I added photos on the Facebook page of my class. The students also reviewed our findings and placed them on a class slide.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

What cross curricular learning came about as a result of this kit? Learning about longfin tuna - biology/living world. Maths - statistics

How successful was this kit in promoting scientific thinking?

Not Successful At All

Neutral

Very Successful

How effective was this kit in raising your students awareness of the importance of water health?

Not Effective At All

Neutral

Very Effective

What opportunities have arisen for future learning from this kit? Learning more about local creatures and the impact of farming

How motivated are your students to take care of their local environment after this kit?

Not Motivated at All

Neutral

Highly Motivated

In what ways did this kit develop understanding of the cultural significance of water in Te Ao Māori? The kids went further and wanted to learn about longfin tuna and how they live in our local waterway and the significance that it has to longfin tuna.

“We loved it! The kids enjoyed learning all about the invertebrates especially.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

Water Quality Testing 20 Reviews