Clarification details
Updated August 2016. This document has been updated in its entirety to address new issues that have arisen from moderation.
The personal action
The 6 credit value reflects around 60 hours of teaching, learning and assessment. The personal action is a response to a local sustainability issue that is having a measurable impact (on a sustainable future).
A waste management context could be a series of planned actions over a school term: waste audit, investigation of current costs for waste (data), speaking to the Board of Trustees and school assembly, providing recycle bins (action), auditing waste and costs saved and how their action contributes to a sustainable future (reflection).
When the action undertaken is to ‘raise awareness’ or ‘provoke public action’, e.g. creating a poster, brochure, signage etc., students need to find a way to collect data to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of their plan among the target audience, for example by interviewing/surveying students after a presentation at a school assembly, or by measuring behaviour changes, e.g. for a waste minimisation context.
Data gathering and measurement methods
The student will investigate the current situation before and after the action, using either quantitative or qualitative data. The intention is that this data will inform the action. It may be referenced from local websites and organisations such as DOC, Regional Councils, as well as from visiting experts.
To consider the effectiveness of their action, they may source their data from their own observations, surveys, information collection, etc.
The reflection
Evidence for the reflection needs to be sufficient to explain the effectiveness (or not) of their personal action, and they need to clearly link how this contributed to the aspect(s) of sustainability addressed in the plan.
For Merit, they need to consider in depth how undertaking the action has changed their own behaviours or attitudes in relation to the issue.
For Excellence, critical reflection should consider the current and future situation and include innovative thinking. When students apply a SWOT analysis, it needs to be clearly linked to the aspect(s) of sustainability.