Living World resources

Students are provided with a fact file on the tuatara. Students answer four questions that are based on information contained in the fact file.

Students give two pieces of information a scientist could learn from placing bands on the legs of birds.

Students are provided with a picture of a New Zealand native bird. Students select a word from a given list to name each of these bird parts. Students are then required to explain why the bird needs each of these named parts.

Task: Read a short piece of narrative. Identify and explain the behavioural adaptations of oystercatchers. Assessment focus: interpreting text to identify behavioural adaptations and their purposes.

Task: Use evidence to make inferences about how leaves help plants survive in particular environments. Assessment focus: leaf adaptations.

Task: Identify features of 4 animals that live in water, then use this information to decide whether they are fish or not. Assessment focus: classification of fish.

Task: Identify features of 4 animals that live in water, then use this information to decide whether they are fish or not. Assessment focus: classification of fish.

Task: Students decide whether six animals are insects or spiders and justify their answers. Assessment focus: Using evidence.

Reading text to find information about how scientists work. Assessment focus: interpreting information about how scientists work.

Students categorise statements according to whether they are evidence or inferences. They make inferences about moa, supporting them with evidence. Assessment focus: thinking in scientific ways.

Task: View photograph to explain how a chiton protects itself in its environment. Assessment focus: identifying features that help to protect an animal in its particular environment.

Task: Place in order six statements about a series of food chain related events in a beech forest, and justify decisions. Assessment focus: interdependence.

Task: Use features of velociraptors to make inferences about their life style. Assessment focus: using evidence to make inferences.

Task: Students classify each of six drawn whales as either toothed or baleen whales. They then divide each group further by using a key. Assessment focus: Interpreting information.

Task: Students draw a labelled diagram of a plant indicating how it gets its energy. Assessment focus: photosynthesis.

Students are provided with a narrative of two children who have gone back to the past at a time when dinosaurs existed. Students have a number of questions to answer during the narrative.

Students read some notes about kakapo, and answer questions on how the kakapo is distinct from other parrots, and why these birds are endangered.

Task: Answer questions about frog's skin adaptations, and use this information to think about consequences of chytrid fungus for Archey's frogs. Assessment focus: using information to think about management of native endangered species.

Task: read an article about releasing hand-reared kaka into a safe environment and answer questions about the research. Assessment focus: field investigations.

Students are given a diagram and information on the ratios of black- to grey-coated possums. Students answer questions relating to this information as well as identifying a method that could be used to determine the percentage of each coat colour.

Task: Decide the advantages for survival of both introduced and native frogs' life cycles, explain how climate change could impact on native frogs, and identify level of interest in survival of native frogs. Assessment focus: using information about adaptations.

Task: Identify how features/adaptations of a starfish help it survive, and decide whether the amount of evidence from scientists' observations supports or does not support their theory/inference. Assessment focus: using observations as evidence to inform theories.

Decide whether the photographed animals are reptiles or not, and justify responses. (A fact file giving the features of reptiles is given.) Answer a question about why scientists have an agreed way of grouping living things. Assessment focus: using science-based classifications.

Task: Students answer questions about feeding relationships in a rocky shore ecosystem. Assessment focus: interpreting a food web.

Task: Read information and compare the special features that influence the chances of survival of black robins and fantails. Assessment focus: interpreting text to identify risk factors for survival.