This article describes how students and Ngāti Mutunga teamed up with an ecologist to investigate frog populations – kimihia means to look for – in the Ngāti Mutunga rohe. The investigation used a combination of traditional scientific protocols and mātauranga Māori.
The article explores frogs as bioindicators of ecosystem health. It provides background information about Aotearoa New Zealand’s pepeketua (native frogs) and poraka (introduced frogs). It also provides information on how the data was collected, via observational surveys and acoustic surveys. The students had some surprising results. They discovered the green and golden bell frog – the first time it has been seen this far south!
Teacher support material
Check your school resource area for the article from the 2019 level 2 Connected journal Wild Discoveries, download it as a Google slide presentation from Tāhūrangi or order it from the Ministry of Education.
The teacher support material (TSM) can be downloaded from Tahurangi (Word and PDF files). It has two activity ideas – More frog fact files and Take action for frogs! – along with resource links.
Frogs for the future? is a ready-to-use cross-curricular teaching resource. It uses this Connected article as the starting point.
Related content
Learn more about our native amphibians with these resources:
- Native frogs
- Investigating frog disease
- Threats to native reptiles and amphibians
- Unique New Zealand: reptiles and amphibians
Check out our entire range of Connected articles here. We’ve curated them by topic and concepts.
Related activities
Observation: learning to see uses images of frogs to help students gain observation and inference skills.
FrogID is an app that uses audio of frogs’ unique calls to identify various species and their locations. We can use it in New Zealand to record the location of introduced frogs.
Useful links
The Connected journals can be ordered from the Down the Back of the Chair website. Access to these resources is restricted to Ministry-approved education providers. To find out if you are eligible for a login or if you have forgotten your login details, contact their customer services team on 0800 660 662 or email orders@thechair.education.govt.nz.
Kimihia Kermit was a 2018 Participatory Science Platform project.
Visit the Department of Conservation website for more information about frogs and frog conservation.
The NZFROG website has lots of information about frogs in New Zealand and what is being done to save them.
Download New Zealand frogs – Pepeketua by Rachael Goddard from the National Library. This free book aims to educate children in a fun and engaging way about conservation, using our four native, rare and endangered frog species.
Acknowledgement
The Connected series is published annually by the Ministry of Education, New Zealand.
