Forest Health
This collection supports the House of Science Forest Health kit – but it is also useful for anyone interested in kauri dieback and myrtle rust.
Activity 1: Get to know a tree
Part A: Meet and greet
Learning Objectives (levels 1-4)
Students explore a tree and the community of living things in, on, under and around it.
Part B: How tall?
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students calculate the height of a tree.
Ngā rākau ❘ Trees
This article curates bilingual and te reo Māori resources in a form accessible to students and teachers with limited prior knowledge relating to plant identification and biology.
New Zealand native trees – an introduction
This article curates numerous resources including activities and PLD webinars. It also has an interactive that groups resources into planning topics and/or big science ideas.
Activity 2: What is a forest?
Learning Objectives (levels 1-4)
Students use their sense of hearing to explore the soundscape of healthy New Zealand forests.
Activity 3: Seeing Sound
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students explore the relationship between vibration and sound.
Creating soundscapes
Although this activity uses the sea and seashore as the context for creating a soundscape, the background notes, instructions and discussion questions will still be of value.
Building Science Concepts: Exploring sound
This Building Science Concepts article and interactive focuses on sound - how it moves and how we hear it.
Activity 4: Forest Giants
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students visualise, compare, and contrast the dimensions of New Zealand’s largest kauri tree.
Activity 5: Tree Time
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students understand that trees in forests store information about their past and the environment in which they grew.
Indigenous perspectives – giants of the forests
This article uses Tāne Mahuta and the samaúma to explore indigenous connections between forest giants, people and indigenous knowledge.
Activity 6: Under attack
Part A: Kauri Dieback
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students model actions that can be undertaken to protect kauri by reducing the spread of the kauri dieback pathogen.
Part B: Myrtle Rust
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students model the spread of myrtle rust spores.
Fighting kauri dieback
Scientific findings combined with the knowledge of mātauranga Māori are vital to informing decisions on how to combat the spread of the disease. It also has actions we can take to avoid the spread including Kauri Rescue.
Kauri Dieback: Death in the Ngahere
Project Mātauranga video.
Kauri dieback
This Connected article provides information about the kauri dieback disease cycle and how it spreads. It also explains how mātauranga Māori and rongoā may provide insight on how to protect kauri from the deadly spores.
Myrtle rust
This article explains the origins of the disease, the symptoms, and approaches Aotearoa New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries is using to understand and manage myrtle rust.
Detecting myrtle rust in New Zealand
Nature of Science
This interactive provides a chronology of events and how science organisations have worked together to monitor and respond to myrtle rust.
Using RNAi to combat myrtle rust
Australian scientists are investigating a biotechnology tool called RNA interference as a potential means of combating myrtle rust.
Myrtle Rust Reporter
The Myrtle Rust Reporter is a citizen science project using iNaturalist to log sightings of the disease.
Activity 7: Seed Stuff
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students understand the structure and function of seeds.
Activity 8: Seed Storage and Seed Banking
Learning Objectives (levels 2-4)
Students understand that seed banking is the practice of storing viable seeds for future use.
