The ocean is our life
As Oceans Week draws to a close, we celebrate that nearly 40 countries are now calling for a moratorium on Deep-sea Mining (DSM).
Te Ipukarea Society (TIS) president, June Hosking, is a passionate ocean advocate. Driven by that passion, she wrote two children’s books, with the support of TIS and Ocean Ancestors. These books aim to educate readers on how oceans are teeming with diverse life—large, microscopic, weird, and so much still unknown. This life is an integral part of the cycles upon which all life, including humans, depends.
As an educator, June, along with her very talented sister Edna also took on the task of creating activity guides. These Story Plus Activity Guides support the books’ ideas and themes and extend the considerations to deepen understanding and, hopefully, heart- and head-connection with the life that supports us. They are designed to ensure schools receive useful resources that take these books from beautiful reads to the basis of potential school wide integrated unit plans.
Treasures of the Deep activities are aimed at primary school tamariki, with activities like a scavenger hunt, drawing their own sea creature, understanding what biodiversity means, and more. Older tamariki might also enjoy the language building and water pressure investigation.
Unbroken, at first glance just a beautifully illustrated poem, is a book for thinkers, aimed primarily at intermediate to high-school level tamariki. As such, the activity guide prompts thought and discussion across subject areas: Language, Math, Science, Economics and Enterprise, Social Science, and Culture. Some activities would span several periods. For example, determining the nature of a consultation, then planning, actioning, voting and reviewing the process.
June recently took reading sessions with classes at ʻĀpiʻi Maʻuke. Each reading was followed by activities like watching footage of the deep sea, singing a Moana song, checking out a nutrient cycle in compost, and trialling the high-school Science/Math lesson from Unbroken's activity guide.
June says, “I went into each class thinking, there’s not a lot of words, so I'll just read the book and go from there. In every class my plan was foiled in the best way possible, as students and adults questioned or commented on every page. This turned a reading into an interactive learning experience for all, including myself.
Our tamariki knew about māroro fishing so that was the only prompt they needed to realise what was going on with what looked like a light in front of a set of pointy teeth in the deep. It was great to hear Years 4 to 6 students, without prompting, surmising that if the little things in the ocean die, we won’t have fish to eat.
When Miss Matapō noticed the font changes in Treasures of the Deep, an impromptu discussion ensued as senior students considered techniques used to grab attention through text.
The illustration of threats to our Marae Moana gave opportunity to share a Niuean technique for removing ariri without breaking shells, so they can be returned to the beach for unga homes.
I was excited to gain more insight into the culture of Pito ʻEnua from Maʻuke’s Fisheries Officer, Tai Akamoeau. Tai came to assist Years 7 to 11 students with an exercise investigating pictured quadrats for data, tallying and plotting new species found.
Tai now plans to include this learning into ongoing lagoon life investigations, with findings to be presented to council, including a possible rāʻui if surveys show depleted stocks.
Such enthusiastic learning for life by problem solving for the health and well-being of our community is a wonderful example of Unbroken's theme - interlinking, overlapping, nothing lives apart.”
The Story Plus Activity Guides are available from the TIS website > About us > Links. The guides can be downloaded and printed, or used electronically, taking advantage of the clickable links to navigate the document and as needed external sites.