Saving the Lizards by Iona McNaughton is an informative non-fiction text that explores how people worked together to protect native lizards affected by the construction of the Transmission Gully motorway. The text explains how surveys carried out before building began identified that skinks and geckos were at risk, and how workers carefully captured and relocated them to Ngā Manu Nature Reserve near Waikanae. Through clear explanation and real-life examples, students learn how environmental protection is planned and carried out alongside major developments.

The text highlights the role of scientists, engineers, iwi, and kaumātua, showing how kaitiakitanga guided decisions about the lizards’ care and new habitats. It explains how cages and specially designed rock piles were created to keep the lizards safe from predators, and how ongoing monitoring helped ensure their wellbeing. Informative, hopeful, and grounded in real events, 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 responsibility, and caring for native species in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This pack contains wide range of response activities including:

• A guided reading plan exploring key literacy elements including inference and deduction, language use, making connection and text organisation, along with key questioning to promote emotional intelligence, metacognition and compassionate inquiry. 
• An independent learning contract complete with explainer videos for activity clarity
  
• A wide range of response activities to support developing and embedding key literacy skills including sentence and word work, spelling, and cloze activities. 

Curriculum Phase: Phase 2
Year Level: Year 3

English (NZC Levels 2–3): reading for meaning and enjoyment, identifying key ideas and information, understanding informational texts, interpreting diagrams and tables, building topic-specific vocabulary

Science – Living World: native animals and habitats, human impact on the environment, conservation and protection, adaptation and survival

Social Sciences – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: community action, kaitiakitanga, continuity and change, caring for places and species, roles and responsibilities

Technology: design solutions, problem-solving, creating safe habitats, using measurements

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

Key words include: lizards, skinks, geckos, native species, Ngā Manu Nature Reserve, Transmission Gully, Waikanae, Porirua, Wellington, environment, habitat, conservation, protection, relocation, surveys, flora and fauna, kaitiaki, kaitiakitanga, kaumātua, Ngāti Toa, Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, predators, rats, mice, cages, rock piles, measuring, monitoring, scientists, engineers, motorway, sustainability, community responsibility, caring for nature, Aotearoa New Zealand