Understanding the issue and building a position
What counts as a socio-scientific issue
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An issue qualifies only if it has all three of these features:
- Biological implications — there is real biology underlying it.
- Social implications — economic, ethical, cultural or environmental consequences for people.
- Genuine disagreement — people hold different, defensible viewpoints.
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Test your issue against all three before starting. Common mistakes:
- Does smoking cause lung cancer? — has biology and social implications, but no genuine scientific disagreement. There is no position to argue.
- Should the drinking age change? — has social implications and disagreement, but the biology is thin.
- How does photosynthesis work? — biology only. Not an issue at all.
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The disagreement is usually about values, not facts. Two people can accept exactly the same science and still disagree, because they weigh outcomes differently — one prioritising native biodiversity, another animal welfare, another economic cost. Recognising where the disagreement actually sits is one of the most useful things you can do early.
Integrating biological knowledge
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Integrate means selecting and collating the biological knowledge relevant to the issue — not reproducing everything you know about the topic.
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The standard specifies that biological knowledge includes three things, and a strong response covers all of them:
- The biological concepts and processes relating to the issue.
- The biological and social implications.
- The differing opinions or viewpoints.
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Selecting well is the skill being assessed. Ask of every piece of biology you include: does this change the argument? If it does not, cut it. A page explaining a mechanism in detail that plays no part in your reasoning is padding, and it obscures the biology that does matter.
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The biology must connect to the position. Set out the chain explicitly:
- the biological process → what it causes → why that matters → what follows for the decision.
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A response where the biology sits in one section and the opinion in another has not integrated anything. The two must be woven together, with each claim in your position resting on a stated piece of biology.
Understanding the viewpoints
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The standard requires you to engage with differing viewpoints, and this is not optional politeness — it is where much of the reasoning happens.
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For each significant viewpoint, work out:
- What is claimed, stated fairly and at its strongest.
- What biology is being relied on, and whether that biology is sound.
- What is being valued — the priority underlying the position.
- Where it genuinely disagrees with other viewpoints: on the facts, or on the values?
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State opposing views at their strongest. A response that presents the other side as obviously foolish demonstrates less than one that presents it well and then explains why it is nonetheless outweighed. A misrepresented opposing view is not actually being addressed.
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Many New Zealand issues involve kaitiakitanga and mana whenua perspectives, and these are substantive positions grounded in a long relationship with the environment, not add-ons. Where an issue affects a taonga species or a site of significance, engaging with those viewpoints properly is part of understanding the issue.
Stating your position
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Your position must be clear, specific, and supported by biology.
- Too vague: I think we should be careful about pest control.
- Clear and specific: I support the continued use of aerially applied 1080 in remote forest areas where ground-based control is impractical, while supporting continued research into alternatives.
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A specific position is easier to defend, because you can say exactly what you support and under what conditions. It also lets you acknowledge the limits of your own view, which reads as judgement rather than hedging.
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You may take a qualified position — supporting something under certain conditions, or opposing it in some contexts but not others. This is often the most defensible option, provided you say what the conditions are and why they matter.
Proposing actions
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Achieved requires proposing action(s) at a personal and/or societal level. This is a discrete requirement and is easily forgotten.
- Personal — what you will do: choices you make, how you inform yourself, how you participate.
- Societal — what you think should be done more widely: policy, regulation, funding, research, education.
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Good actions are specific and connected to the biology:
- Weak: People should be more aware of the issue.
- Better: Regional councils should fund riparian planting along waterways in intensively farmed catchments, because vegetated buffer strips intercept nitrate and phosphate in runoff before it reaches the water, reducing the nutrient load that drives algal blooms.
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The second states who acts, what they do, and the biological reason it would work — which sets up the effectiveness analysis that Excellence requires.
Selective advantage
- Not applicable — this is a skills standard. It assesses how you integrate and evaluate biological knowledge, not biological content itself.
Worked Example
Worked Example
A student chooses kauri dieback as their issue and drafts this opening:
Explain why this would not reach Achieved, and rewrite it.
Answer:
Why it fails.
- No biology. The response states that a disease kills trees, which is not biological knowledge — it is the definition of the problem. Nothing about the pathogen, its transmission, or how it affects the tree appears, so there is no biological knowledge for the position to be developed from.
- No genuine position. We should stop it is not a position, because nobody disagrees with it. The actual disagreement in this issue is about how — track closures, hygiene stations, funding, restricting access to sites of cultural significance — and the response engages with none of it.
- The action is vague and unconnected. People should be more careful names no actor, no specific action, and no biological reason why it would work.
- No viewpoints. Nobody who disagrees is mentioned, so nothing has been weighed.
Rewritten opening.
The biology. Kauri dieback is caused by a soil-borne pathogen that infects the tree's roots and damages the tissues that transport water and nutrients. As the root and collar tissue is destroyed, the tree cannot move water and dissolved minerals to the canopy, so leaves yellow, the canopy thins, and the tree eventually dies. There is currently no cure for an infected tree.
Transmission is what makes this a management problem: the pathogen spreads in soil and water, so even a small amount of contaminated soil carried on footwear, tyres or equipment can introduce it to an uninfected area. This means human movement is a major transmission route, which is why the issue concerns access rather than treatment.
Why the biology matters for the decision. Two features drive everything:
- Because there is no cure, the only effective intervention is preventing spread — so management must be about transmission, not treatment.
- Because kauri are extremely long-lived and slow to mature, a mature tree lost cannot be replaced within a human timeframe. The loss is therefore effectively permanent, which raises the cost of failing to act.
The wider ecological implication. Kauri are ecosystem engineers: their leaf litter is acidic and alters soil chemistry, supporting a distinctive community of plants and invertebrates found with kauri and not elsewhere. Losing kauri would therefore not mean losing one species but the community that depends on the conditions kauri create — which makes the biological implication considerably larger than the tree itself.
The viewpoints.
- Some argue for closing tracks in infected and at-risk forests, because human movement is the principal transmission route and hygiene stations depend on compliance that cannot be guaranteed.
- Others argue that closures are too costly, restricting recreation, tourism and access, and that improved hygiene stations with education achieve most of the benefit at lower cost.
- Mana whenua hold that kauri are taonga, and rāhui have been applied to affected areas — a position grounded in kaitiakitanga and in obligations to protect a taonga species for future generations, and one carrying its own authority rather than being one opinion among others.
The position. I support closing tracks through stands of mature kauri where hygiene compliance cannot be reliably monitored, and support rāhui applied by mana whenua, while supporting continued open access with well-maintained hygiene stations in areas already surveyed as uninfected.
Actions.
- Personal: clean all soil from footwear before and after entering kauri forest, use every hygiene station, and stay on formed tracks — because even a small quantity of contaminated soil can carry the pathogen.
- Societal: central government should fund maintenance and monitoring of hygiene stations, since their effectiveness depends entirely on being supplied and functional, and should fund research into treatment, because prevention alone cannot help trees already infected.