The Future of Growing Kai by Arihia Latham is an informative non-fiction text that weaves scientific knowledge with Māori values to explore how people can grow food sustainably in a changing climate. Through clear explanation and real-life examples, the text examines why growing kai is important for wellbeing, community, and the environment, and how traditional knowledge and modern innovation can work together. The narrative highlights concepts such as kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, and the role of Rongomātāne, showing how caring for the whenua and sharing food strengthens connections between people and place. By responding to challenges such as Cyclone Gabrielle and climate change, the text encourages students to imagine creative solutions for the future of food production. Informative, hopeful, and future-focused, the text supports students to understand sustainability through lived experience and voice.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy, science, social sciences, and technology, supporting inquiry into food systems, climate change, innovation, and environmental responsibility 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 explanatory texts, interpreting visual information, building topic-specific and cultural vocabulary

Science – Living World: plants and their needs, ecosystems, sustainability, human impact on the environment, adaptation and survival

Social Sciences – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: Māori knowledge and practice, community action, continuity and change, identity and belonging, caring for places and people

Technology: innovation in farming, design solutions, problem-solving, sustainable systems

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

Key words include: Aotearoa New Zealand histories, kai, gardening, food systems, sustainability, climate change, Cyclone Gabrielle, kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, Rongomātāne, maramataka, lunar calendar, māra kai, whānau, hapori, community gardens, Enviroschools, recycling, compost, worm farm, rainwater collection, organic growing, pesticides, pests, plants, seeds, crops, urban farming, vertical farming, Plenty, Te Tai Tokerau, Northland, Pā to Plate, whenua, traditional knowledge, innovation, future food, resilience, environmental responsibility, collective action, wellbeing