If your route crosses the ridge above the isthmus, stop and have students sketch the peninsula from elevation before descending to the reef. The tied island form is visible from above in a way it is not from ground level. This sketch becomes a reference for the geography work later.
Identify where the tide is in its cycle. Locate safe exit routes from the rock platform. Note swell height on the ocean-facing side and appoint a designated wave watcher in each group if working near exposed water. Establish a clear signal for the group to return immediately.
Before touching anything, walk from the splash zone to the lowest accessible level and identify where the bands change. Look for the shift from black lichen crust, to barnacle grey, to mussel and anemone, to kelp. Name the zones in the field before examining individual species. The pattern is the lesson.
Use the white container method. Carefully lift rocks, note what is underneath, and replace them immediately in exactly the same position and orientation. Transfer organisms to the container for observation and photography, then return them to the zone they came from. Tally each organism type by zone. Photograph specimens clearly for iNaturalist submission, location enabled.
Examine accessible cliff faces and large boulder surfaces for fossils. Sketch what you find, noting its location and approximate size. Do not attempt to remove fossils from the rock: Heritage New Zealand protections apply and the fossil record is destroyed by removal. Photograph for iNaturalist and note depth in the cliff face relative to surrounding rock.
If both coasts are accessible and conditions are safe, groups survey a comparable area on each side and compare organism tallies. The difference in species composition and density between the sheltered bay and the exposed ocean face is a natural experiment in wave exposure as an ecological variable. The two surveys take the same time and produce genuinely different results.
All organisms returned to the zone they came from. All rocks replaced. Field notes and tally sheets completed before leaving the reef. Each student records one question the visit has opened before returning to the bus. These questions are the starting points for the classroom prompts below.
The intertidal reef at Māhia is arranged in four zones, each defined by how long it spends underwater each day. The zone boundaries are visible as colour and texture changes across the rock before a single organism is examined.
| Zone | Key features | What to find |
|---|---|---|
| Splash zone | Above high tide, wetted by spray only. Black lichen crust is the defining feature. | Periwinkle snails, black lichen, sandhoppers in kelp wrack |
| High tide zone | Submerged only at highest tides. Grey-white barnacle crust visible from distance. | Limpets (several species), acorn barnacles, chitons on shaded rock |
| Mid tide zone | Exposed twice daily. Most productive rock pool habitat. Green and red algae present. | Blue mussels, sea anemones, hermit crabs, rock crabs, small shore fish, snails |
| Low tide zone | Exposed only at low spring tides. Kelp fringe, highest species diversity. | Sea urchins (kina), cushion stars, nudibranchs, kelp, larger crabs, starfish |
Every prompt below starts with something students collected, sketched, tallied, or photographed at Māhia. The field data is the anchor. Where gen AI is used alongside iNaturalist, the comparison between the two outputs is the learning task.
Choose one organism from your zone tally and tell a gen AI chatbot which zone you found it in. Ask the chatbot to explain why that organism lives in that zone rather than higher up or lower down. Compare the answer with what you observed about the conditions in that zone. Does the explanation fit what you saw?
Describe what you found in the cliff face to a gen AI chatbot: the shape, the size, what it looked like it might have been. Ask how something that was once alive ended up inside a rock, and what the sea around Māhia might have looked like when that animal was alive. Compare the AI answer with what your teacher told you about the limestone before the visit.
Describe the bay side and the ocean side of the peninsula to a gen AI chatbot, using details from your zone tallies: which side had more organisms, which felt calmer, which had bigger waves. Ask the chatbot to explain why two shores so close together can be so different. Does the explanation match what you experienced?
Using the organisms you found on your tally sheet, ask a gen AI chatbot to build a simple food chain starting from kelp or algae and ending with something bigger. Draw the food chain the AI describes. Then ask: which link in the chain would be hardest to replace if it disappeared from the reef?
Share your zone tally data with a gen AI chatbot and ask it to explain the abiotic factors (desiccation, wave exposure, temperature, salinity variation) that produce the zone boundaries you observed. Then evaluate the explanation against your field notes. Which factors were most visible in the pattern you recorded? Which factors are harder to observe directly?
Using your fossil sketches and any iNaturalist observations, ask a gen AI chatbot to explain what the presence of marine fossils in limestone tells geologists about the geological history of a site. What does the Māhia limestone tell us about what this peninsula was before it was a peninsula? Check key claims against a GNS Science source.
Ask a gen AI chatbot to explain how a tied island or tombolo forms, using Māhia Peninsula as the example. Evaluate whether the explanation matches the sketch you made of the landform on arrival. Ask the chatbot what evidence a geographer would look for to confirm that a landform like this formed by sediment accumulation rather than by volcanic uplift.
Using organism tally data from both the bay side and ocean side surveys, ask a gen AI chatbot to explain why wave exposure produces different species assemblages. Which side had greater diversity and why? Ask the chatbot to predict which organisms would be first to return to the lower-diversity side if wave exposure were reduced. Evaluate the prediction against your data.
Using your complete zone survey dataset, ask a gen AI chatbot to construct a food web for the Māhia intertidal community. Identify what is missing from your field data that would be needed to verify the web fully (trophic levels not visible at low tide, microbial and algal producers, mobile predators). Evaluate whether the AI's food web is ecologically defensible and what assumptions it makes.
Using your fossil observations, descriptions of the limestone, and the wave cut platform extent recorded in the field, ask a gen AI chatbot to construct a geological timeline for Māhia Peninsula. Identify the assumptions embedded in the AI account, the points where uncertainty should be acknowledged but is not, and where GNS Science geological maps or peer reviewed literature would be required to verify the claims.
The isthmus connecting Māhia to the mainland formed over thousands of years of sediment accumulation. Ask a gen AI chatbot to model how this landform is likely to respond to projected sea level rise over the next 100 years. What data would a coastal geomorphologist use to assess this? Does the AI engage appropriately with uncertainty, or does it present projections with more confidence than the science supports?
Using your field observations as a species baseline, ask a gen AI chatbot to describe how projected ocean warming, acidification, and changes in sea level are likely to affect the specific organisms you recorded at Māhia. Evaluate which predictions are well supported by published research (cite what you find), which are plausible but speculative, and which depend on assumptions the AI has not made explicit.
| Level | Years 0–6 | Years 7–10 | Years 11–13 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Student names at least one organism from two different intertidal zones and can say which zone is higher and which is lower. Understands that the fossils in the cliff were once living animals in a sea that no longer exists at this location. Can describe one difference between the bay side and the ocean side. | Student names all four intertidal zones, identifies at least two organisms characteristic of each zone sampled, and makes an initial claim about the condition of the reef based on the distribution of what was found. Identifies the isthmus as a geographic feature with an explanation for its origin. | Student produces a complete field dataset: organism tallies by zone from at least one coast, fossil sketches with location and size notes, and a landform sketch of the isthmus from elevation. The dataset constitutes original field evidence collected at the site, not a description assembled after the fact from secondary sources. |
| 2 | Student links zone position to a survival explanation: limpets live high because they can survive drying out; kina live low because they cannot. Links the fossil to an explanation of geological time: the rock was once a seabed. Can explain in simple terms why the two coasts are different even though they are close together. | Student explains the abiotic gradient across the intertidal zones and connects specific organism distributions in their field data to the specific conditions in each zone. Explains how the tied island landform formed and why the bay side and ocean side produce different ecological communities. | Student constructs a connected account linking the geological history of the peninsula (Tertiary marine sediments, uplift, erosion and sediment accumulation), the current geomorphology (tied island, dual coast, wave cut platforms), and the ecological communities documented in the zone survey, using field-collected data as the primary evidence at each step. |
| 3 | Student compares an iNaturalist identification for one specimen with what a gen AI chatbot said when given a description of the same organism. Can say in simple terms which tool they trust more for this task and give a reason. | Student documents a systematic comparison between iNaturalist (location-aware, image-based, expert-verified) and a gen AI chatbot for at least one intertidal species, and explains what the comparison reveals about how each tool works and what data each one uses to arrive at an identification. | Student evaluates a gen AI account across at least two of the three curriculum areas (marine ecology, geology, coastal geography) against field-collected data and an authoritative NZ source (NIWA, GNS Science, DOC), identifying clearly where the AI is reliable, where it is imprecise, and where it should not be used without independent verification. |
| 4 | Student explains what being at Māhia provided that a classroom lesson, photograph, or video could not: the smell of the reef at low tide, the surprise of what appeared under a rock, the texture of limestone in their hand, the view of both coasts from the same ridge. | Student articulates why field-collected zone data is more valuable for a reef health claim than any secondary source: it is independently collected, location specific, time-stamped, and reflects the conditions at this particular site on this particular day. Explains why that specificity matters for the claim being made. | Student reflects on the epistemological significance of working with primary field data at a site that is simultaneously the subject of inquiry and the source of evidence. Articulates what it means to hold a dataset that no other class has collected and what obligations that places on how it is used and reported. |
| 5 | Student generates one question they would like to investigate at Māhia at a different tide height or in a different season, and can say what they would look for that would help answer it. At least one iNaturalist observation submitted from the reef, with location enabled. | Student formulates a testable monitoring question arising from their field visit: what they would measure on a return visit, how often sampling would need to occur to detect change, and what shift in the zone data would indicate that the reef's condition had improved or declined. | Student designs a repeat sampling monitoring protocol for one aspect of the Māhia site: specifying the research question, sampling method, site locations, frequency, indicators to record, analysis approach, and the threshold that would trigger a concern or management response. The protocol is specific enough that a different team could follow it and produce comparable data. |