In 1975, many Māori were angry that their land was still being taken and sold. Whina Cooper, who was nearly 80 years old, led a huge march (a hīkoi) from the Far North to Parliament in Wellington. Their message was "Not one more acre of Māori land should be sold." The march brought huge attention to the issue of Māori land rights.
In 1981, the South African rugby team, the Springboks, toured New Zealand. At the time, South Africa had a racist system called Apartheid. Huge protests were organised across NZ to stop the games. Protestors felt it was wrong to play sports with a country that had such an unfair system. The country was divided, but the protests sent a powerful message against racism.
Bastion Point (Takaparawhau) is important land in Auckland for the iwi Ngāti Whātua. The government had taken most of it over many years. In 1977, protestors occupied the land for 506 days to stop it from being sold for expensive housing. Although the protestors were arrested, the protest raised public awareness, and the land was eventually returned to Ngāti Whātua.
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.
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.