Deciding on action
This involves taking what we’ve learned and considering what we will do with the information and exploring alternatives. It is an ideal way to engage in cross-curricular learning. There is real potential to create opportunities for students to develop interviewing skills and co-operative skills, determine budgets, be creative and innovative, create technical plans and take action to become agents of change.
Effective planning is a vital part of the action process. Consider whether there are established procedures or protocols you can use to add robustness and usefulness to any data collected.
Resources
Environmental thinking and planning with ecosystem-based management (EBM) – activity
Eco-champions – PLD webinar
Communicating with scientists – interview techniques and protocols – activity
The Ethics thinking toolkit or the Futures thinking toolkit could be used to support students in their inquiries and decision making.
Questions to consider
Who uses or manages the area/situation/process that we’d like to address?
Who do we need to involve?
Who do we need to consult before making decisions?
Are there tikanga or special customary traditions we need to follow?
What is our timeframe?
Is this a one-off action or do we need to plan for ongoing/future action?
Does the weather or the season influence when we should carry out our project?
What skills will we need?
What processes, methodologies or protocols do we need to follow to ensure that our actions provide quality data?
Who are the people who can help us with the processes or protocols?
How will we store or analyse any data we collect?
Will the project require funding or other resources?
How can we obtain funding/resources?
How will our actions lead to the change we are seeking?
Acknowledgement: Andrea Soanes
