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Documentary Observation Sheet — Antarctica

Lesson 1 · Activity 3 · Years 9–10 · one per ākonga

Year LevelYears 9–10
TypeStudent evidence log — one per ākonga

Your job while the documentary runs

You are hunting for evidence — specific changes, numbers and places — not opinions. The film is "Antarctica in a Warming World" (RNZ, about 18 minutes). Fill the log as you watch; you will not get everything, and that is fine. Aim for at least one entry in every column. Full runsheet: Lesson 1, Activity 3.

Ngā Kitenga · Observation Log

Four columns. Write short — a phrase and a figure beats a sentence.

What is changing?The data shown
(number, date, place)
Questions it raisesConnection to Aotearoa

Halfway pause (20 seconds). Your kaiako will stop the film once. Turn to your partner: have you got an entry in every column yet? If a column is empty, that is what you are listening for in the second half.

Whakatairite · Compare (4 min, after the film)

Swap sheets with your partner and find one piece of evidence they caught that you missed. Add it to your log — write it in a different colour so you know where it came from.

Evidence I missed (and who caught it):

⭐ Star one change

Go back over your log and put a star next to the single change that worries you most as a kaitiaki. Then write it out here — you carry this one into Activity 4, where you build your kaitiaki response to it.

Why this one, and not another?

Kaiako notes

  • Set the purpose before you press play. Read the four column headings aloud with the class so ākonga know what they are capturing. Thirty seconds here saves the whole activity.
  • The tell you are looking for is a column-2 entry with an actual number, date or place name in it. "The ice is melting" is not evidence; a named place with a figure or a date is.
  • If the internet is unreliable, download the documentary ahead of time — RNZ permits it.
  • Ākonga who find the log hard to fill can work in a pair on one sheet for the first half, then split for the second. Column 4 is the one most worth protecting — the Antarctica–Aotearoa connection is the lesson's spine.
  • Collect the starred changes before Activity 4 if you want to see the spread; they also seed the class kaitiaki responses that run on into Lesson 2.