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Lesson 5.1: Guided Inquiry Project Launch - Design Your Society

Culminating Project: Research, Plan and Design a New Society

🚀 Project Launch

The Challenge: Design Your Ideal Society

Working in groups of 4-5, you will research, plan, and design a completely new society that addresses the challenges we've studied throughout this unit. Your society must integrate the indigenous governance principles and decolonised thinking we've explored.

This is a 5-week guided inquiry project where you'll work collaboratively to create a comprehensive society design that serves the collective good and honours cultural wisdom.

📋 Complete Teacher Framework

Comprehensive 5-week structured guide with detailed week-by-week progression, assessment rubrics, and cultural integration support.

Access Teacher Framework

🛠️ Interactive Design Tool

Step-by-step digital tool for students to design their society with interactive forms, progress tracking, and downloadable plans.

Launch Design Tool

📅 Project Timeline (5 Weeks)

Week 1: Research & Vision

Groups research existing societies, identify challenges, and develop their vision using cultural principles. Establish collaboration protocols.

Week 2-3: System Design

Design governance, economy, rights, culture, and environment systems. Apply indigenous principles and address real-world challenges.

Week 4: Refinement

Test systems for consistency, gather feedback, address potential issues, and prepare presentation materials.

Week 5: Presentation

Present society designs to community, defend design choices, and reflect on learning about systems and governance.

🎥 Media Anchor (5 mins)

Video: Design Thinking: A Problem Solving Framework

  • Which design principle from the video should anchor your inquiry project from day one?
  • How will your team keep cultural integrity visible in each design decision?

📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot

Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions

Students will engage with this resource to apply systems thinking to real-world civic and community challenges — analysing feedback loops, leverage points, and emergent properties within social, environmental, and governance systems in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

  • ✅ Students can identify system components and their interactions within a real-world context.
  • ✅ Students can apply indigenous systems thinking principles to analyse and propose community action.

Differentiation & Inclusion

Scaffold support: Provide systems mapping templates and sentence starters for entry-level access. Offer extension tasks asking students to identify a second-order effect or design an intervention at a leverage point within their chosen system.

ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach systems thinking vocabulary (feedback loop, leverage point, emergence, interdependence) using visual diagrams. Allow students to annotate systems maps in their home language first.

Inclusion: Use visual, spatial, and collaborative formats wherever possible — systems maps are inherently accessible for diverse learners. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured inquiry steps and chunked analysis tasks. Ensure group roles are clearly defined.

Mātauranga Māori lens: Systems thinking has deep resonance with Te Ao Māori. Whakapapa is a relational map of systems — tracing connections between people, place, and time. Kaitiakitanga frames our responsibility within systems. Mauri provides a measure of system health. These indigenous concepts enrich Western systems thinking frameworks.

Prior knowledge: Students should have completed foundational systems thinking lessons (phases 1–2) before engaging with phase 3 inquiry tasks. No specialist prior knowledge required for standalone resources.

Curriculum alignment