A quick starter for teaching New Zealand History: Kiwi of the Week.
Sitting alongside Today in History on the NZHistory home page is our Kiwi of the Week feature. Here we profile a New Zealander from our past or present. From the movers and shakers of our past to lesser-known innovators who broke barriers and changed lives, these are the many people who make up our story. A list of the biographies available in NZHistory can be found here. Each biography includes links to other sources to support a more in-depth study of that person. Many are also connected to the more detailed biographies available in Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. There are more than 3500 biographies available. These can be searched for alphabetically, and an Advanced Biographies search enables you to filter biographies by dates, occupations and places relevant to people's lives.
Kiwi of the Week could be incorporated into your teaching practice as:
- An introduction or starter to your lesson or day.
- Support for units of work you are currently teaching.
- The basis of a small inquiry topic: e.g., members of your class could research a person based on an area of interest – artist, writer, politician, sportsperson, etc. Students could then make some form of presentation to their classmates or display their findings on a virtual/real noticeboard devoted to ‘Today in History’.
- As a springboard into a wider study: e.g., search for people associated with a particular event, such as the Treaty of Waitangi
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