Chiefs give the Queen kāwanatanga (governorship) over their country.
Māori understanding: Governorship over Pākehā settlers, not over Māori.
The Queen guarantees Māori tino rangatiratanga (absolute chieftainship) over their lands, villages, and all their treasures.
Māori understanding: Full sovereignty and authority over their own people and resources.
The Queen gives Māori the same rights as British subjects.
Māori understanding: Additional protection, not replacement of existing rights.
Chiefs cede completely to the Queen all the rights and powers of sovereignty.
Crown understanding: Māori give up all political power to British Crown.
The Queen guarantees Māori possession of their lands and properties and gives them exclusive right to sell land to the Crown.
Crown understanding: Property rights, but under Crown sovereignty.
The Queen extends to Māori Royal protection and all rights and privileges of British subjects.
Crown understanding: Māori become British subjects under Crown law.
Key Issue: Māori and Crown representatives signed different documents with different meanings!
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.