Cheng, Maurice MWCowie, BronwenStantiall, ChloeByrant, NickThompson, Natalie2025-01-122025-01-122024-12-12(2024). New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), 27p.https://hdl.handle.net/2292/71035This project aims to develop primary, intermediate, and high school students’ sense of place and science-related possible selves through local curriculum units that focus on plants. We chose plants because, compared with animals, they are often overlooked (hence the phenomenon of “plant blindness”) in their part in realising many sustainable development goals. Our curriculum units covered biological, personal, social/cultural, and political/economic aspects of kūmara, kōwhai, and harakeke. These plants are significant in Aotearoa New Zealand history and culture. Hence, the project harnesses the values of place-based education in supporting students to develop a sense of “Who am I?” with respect to “Where am I?”. The team collaboratively planned two 1-week teaching and learning sequences in each school. Based on the data, including records of planning meetings, teaching materials, lesson observations of each lesson, conversations with students and collection of artefacts, teachers’ post-lesson reflections, and surveys, we constructed vignettes as snapshots of the teaching and learning sequences. These vignettes responded to the questions about how we addressed plant blindness and supported Years 5–9 students to envision science-related possible selves. In short, the team agrees that: (1) a focus on one single plant that is culturally relevant to students and Aotearoa could harness pedagogies that help students to see the significance of plants; (2) elements of the past, the present, and the future of the plants formed important contexts for learning; (3) teachers’ funds of knowledge and their experiences/knowledge in informal contexts and previous careers could enrich their planning and teaching.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmReport10.18296/TLRI.0003Copyright: Crown Copyright