The Great Rat-catching Competition by Kate Evans is an informative non-fiction text that weaves environmental science with community action to explore how children on Rakiura (Stewart Island) worked together to protect their native wildlife. Through real-life examples and student voices, the text explains how an unusually large rat population threatened birds, insects, and plants, and how a school-led trapping competition helped reduce the number of pests on the island. The narrative introduces ideas about ecosystems, predators, and human responsibility, while showing how teamwork, curiosity, and determination can make a real difference. By situating the story within the national Predator Free 2050 goal, the text highlights how local action connects to wider environmental efforts across Aotearoa New Zealand. Engaging, hopeful, and empowering, the text supports students to understand conservation and responsibility through lived experience and voice.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy, science, and social sciences, supporting inquiry into environmental protection, community action, and caring for native species in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This pack contains a range of response activities complete with activity explainer videos for exploring thinking skills and developing emotional understandings and compassionate inquiry including:

• Blooms Higher Order Thinking activities
• Book Club guide for deepening text discussion
• A range of activities to explore emotional understanding, compassionate inquiry, empathy development, vocabulary and developing skills for self and co-regulation.

Curriculum Phase: Phase 2
Year Level: Year 4

English (NZC Levels 2–3): reading for meaning and enjoyment, identifying key ideas and facts, understanding informational and report texts, building vocabulary related to science and environment, making connections to real-world issues

Science – Living World: native animals and habitats, predators and prey, human impact on the environment, ecosystems, conservation and sustainability

Social Sciences – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: community action, identity and belonging, continuity and change, local places and people, collective responsibility

Text type: Non-fiction, informational text, report, case study

Key words include: Aotearoa New Zealand histories, Rakiura, Stewart Island, Halfmoon Bay School, Predator Free 2050, rats, predators, pests, trapping, bait, competition, conservation, environment, native birds, kiwi, kākā, tūī, ecosystems, biodiversity, habitats, community action, teamwork, students, science investigation, data collection, measuring, recording results, sustainability, future generations, caring for nature, kaitiakitanga, Tītī Islands, Muttonbird Islands, environmental responsibility