Ko au te taiao: Curriculum links

The tables below suggest possible ways that Ko au te taiao develops understanding, knowledge, and practices for ākonga across the Social Sciences learning area in Te Mātaiaho and other key learning areas in the New Zealand Curriculum.

The tables are designed as a starting point from which teaching and learning in your own setting can be planned. Your focus on any part of any learning area could easily be more in-depth, depending on your learners’ needs and your school’s context.

EXPLORE – What is our connection to te taiao?

Explore the web of life that connects across time and space through pūrakau whakapapa and art.

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EXPLORE – How do we live in harmony with te taiao?

Indigenous knowledges provide signposts for the future.

Herbal mixture II, 2001, by Areta Wilkinson. Te Papa (2001-0039-1)

Big ideas

• Mātauranga Māori has developed through a practised relationship with the land here in Aotearoa.

• Mātauranga Māori is not something that can be read about, and understood,  as it is knowledge that develops from practice.

• The vitality of hapū and iwi is reliant on a deep, woven understanding of the environment.

• Mātauranga Māori and te reo Māori differ widely around the motu as they reflect the hapū and iwi relationship to whenua and te taiao.

• Mātauranga Māori recognises the integrated and interdependent position of human beings in the web of life. 

• Tangata whenua have a connection to the land as kaitiaki that is enduring and permanent.

Go to EXPLORE – How do we live in harmony with te taiao?

Download the pdf of curriculum links for this inquiry question.

EXPLORE – What is the current state of te taiao?

Investigate how colonisation, and its values, has influenced present day relationships with landscape.

Big ideas

• Colonisation, and its associated values, has severely impacted on the health of te taiao.

• Understanding the whakapapa of the whenua where we live helps us to provide appropriate support for the taiao going forward.

• Critically examining our past and present realities helps us to imagine thriving shared futures.

• Museums can have a role in reconnecting people to their histories for thriving shared futures.

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EXPLORE – How is te taiao reflected in toi Māori?

Ponder the ways toi Māori reflects an entwined relationship with the environment.

Kauae Raro Commission (detail), 2023, by Kauae Raro Research Collective. Te Papa

Big ideas The influence of te taiao on toi Māori is extensive, interwoven, permanent and reciprocal Place-based art traditions reflect the ecosystem that surrounds hapū and iwi Māori. Toi Māori is integrated into daily living. It has practical and aesthetic functions that contribute to supporting collective life Toi Māori motivates us to look deeper into our relationships with te taiao through creativity, connection and collaboration. Contemporary toi Māori continues to develop and grow as a powerful tool advocating for the vitality of te taiao.

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CREATE – Who are our ancestors and what are their stories?

Let’s develop understanding of where our ancestors came from.

Whakapapa, 2021, by Stevei Houkamau. Purchased 2021. Te Papa (ME024669)

Big ideas

• We have all inherited genetic resilience and strengths from those that have gone before us.

• In mātauranga Māori, oral traditions passed through whakapapa, sustain the tikanga for a thriving taiao.

• Understanding where your ancestors came from is an important step to help understand your connectedness to te taiao

• Knowing who your ancestors are helps us to understand our, relationship to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Aotearoa

• Every culture has a visual language associated with it - a tradition of arts, symbols, abstraction, and colour that reflected who they were as people, and their relationship to the land.

• Those that have gone before us, and those that will come next are with us, in a spiral across time.

Go to CREATE – Who are our ancestors and what are their stories?

CREATE – How do we tune into the environment?

Grow your own living relationship with the taiao that surrounds you.

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CREATE – What does a better world look like?

Imagining a thriving Aotearoa.

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