Exploring my local lake
Aotearoa New Zealand has more than 3,800 lakes larger than 1 hectare (about the size of a rugby field). Even though there is an abundance of lakes in Aotearoa, many are tucked away.
I think that most New Zealanders don’t know about 90% of lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Many of our lakes are either in national parks in quite remote areas or they are on private land so that most people wouldn’t know they are there.
Dr Susie Wood, Lakes380 co-leader
Finding out about a local freshwater system provides opportunities for:
local curriculum design
building knowledge of local mātauranga and concepts including mauri, wairua, wai ora, ki uta ki tai and mahinga kai
building knowledge of science concepts such as lake origins, catchment areas and water quality.
Lake Ngakapua
Lake Ngakapua is a small lake situated north of Kaitaia. The two basins are separated by a dense bed of kuta. The lake sits on privately owned land.
Image courtesy of Lakes380 – Our lakes’ health: past, present, future.
In this activity, students use a combination of online resources to identify and explore lakes in their local area. The activity can be a simple online discovery or it can be expanded to include an in-depth inquiry of a lake, its catchment area, its current state of health and its history.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
use an online map to locate lakes
use online resources to gather and interpret data about the lakes – for example, catchment information and/or water quality
draw on mātauranga and community stories of how the lakes used to be and explore changes over time
identify issues of importance and consider actions they may like to take.
Download the Word file (see link below).
