Marine Reserves: Protecting Our Big Blue Backyard by Laura Goodall is an informative non-fiction text that explains what marine reserves are and why they are essential for protecting Aotearoa New Zealand’s unique ocean environments. Using clear explanations, diagrams, and real examples, the text describes how marine reserves and mahinga mātaitai protect biodiversity by limiting human impact and allowing marine species to recover and thrive. It explores different marine habitats around the country, introduces key species found in reserves, and explains how reserves support scientific research by providing places where ecosystems can be studied without disturbance. By combining accessible science with ideas of care and responsibility, the text supports students to understand how protection, knowledge, and behaviour work together to safeguard the sea.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy, science, and social sciences, supporting inquiry into ecosystems, biodiversity, kaitiakitanga, and human responsibility for protecting marine environments in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This pack contains a range of structured literacy activities including

• Spelling rules ck / dge / drop the e / y as a consonant or vowel
• Sounds of -ed
• Exploring parts of language - adverbs, adjectives, nouns, verbs etc
• Doubling or not when adding -ing, -ed
• Floss rules
• Compound words
• Identifying and naming suffixes
• Identifying and naming prefixes
• Vowel teams
• Root words
• Controlling 'r'
• Diagraphs
• Schwa words
• Ghost diagraphs
• -oo- and -oo- / -au and -ow / 
• Hard and soft c and g
• Common subordinating conjunctions
• And much more!!

Curriculum Phase: Phase 3

Year Level: Year 4

English (NZC Levels 3–4):
reading for meaning and critical thinking, identifying key ideas and supporting details, interpreting diagrams and visual information, building topic-specific vocabulary, synthesising information across sections

Science – Living World:
marine habitats and ecosystems, biodiversity, human impact on the environment, scientific observation and evidence

Social Sciences – Aotearoa New Zealand Histories:
kaitiakitanga, mahinga mātaitai, Māori perspectives, relationships between people and place, continuity and change, community responsibility

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

Key words include:
marine reserves, mahinga mātaitai, biodiversity, ecosystems, habitats, ocean, sea, coastline, fish, shellfish, seaweed, sponges, overfishing, pollution, climate change, protection, conservation, scientists, research, kaitiakitanga, tangata whenua, iwi, hapū, kaimoana, sustainability, guardianship, Aotearoa New Zealand