Thinking resources

Students produce a simple written description, using nouns and adjectives with some precision.

Students make inferences from a poem. SJ-2-4-1993. Text provided.

Students read a newspaper article about outdoor activities then answer some comprehension questions.

This comprehension task assesses a student's ability to make inferences about a character's feelings based on the evidence in a written and visual text, and their own prior experience.

Task: Use close observation of photos and prior knowledge, to write explanations of how the special features of animal tongues help animals survive in their habitats. Assessment focus: structure and function.

Task: Look for similarities and differences in fruit to answer questions about observation and evidence.

Task: Look for the similarities and differences in how students draw graphs to display information.

Task: Complete a diagram of part of the water cycle and answer a question about rain. Assessment focus: Question a) – the water cycle and conventions of diagrams; question b) – evaporation of a solution.

Task: Match the parts of a water cycle to the parts represented in a model of the water cycle and compare how they are the same and different. Assessment focus: interpreting a model.

Task: Students answer questions about a Southern Ocean food web. Assessment focus: interpreting food webs.

Students to apply their understanding of basic wave behaviour at the sea shore to make an inference about waves in a different but analogous context: to predict where the worst damage might occur in an earthquake.

Task: Decide which of two graphs e.g., tally chart, pictograph, bar graph is represented by a picture and explain how the graph/s are interpreted.

For this practical task students follow a plan to determine the best temperature for the reaction of rennet with milk. Students need to make observations and write a report on their findings.

Task: Match everyday terms about properties with their meanings. Use their understanding about properties of paper and their uses to justify appropriate questions to investigate. Assessment focus: asking questions about paper properties.

Students outline four ways of improving a given plan for an investigation to make it a fair test.

Task: Plan a fair test to see if adding salt water to water affects how long it takes to freeze. Assessment focus: managing variables.

Task: Create, use and identify ‘rules’ based on observable and/or measurable physical properties of common plastics. Assessment focus: classifying & identifying.

This practical task requires students to carry out three tests to find out if each element is a metal or non-metal.

Students outline a test they could do to show if a substance is a metal or not.

Task: Students play a tag game that simulates the relationships between elements within a waterway and discuss how different scenarios impact on the populations living there. Assessment focus: changes within a habitat affect everything living there.

Pictures are given of the life cycles of three different animals (hawk, turtle and deer). Students identify which stage the animal's survival is most in danger and give explanation of why it is not safe. Students also give one special feature that helps this animal survive at this time.

Students identify the variables to be kept constant, and the variable to be different, when they plan a fair test to show if green plants need light to grow.

Task: Make careful observations of a picture to decide what you can see and what you might know but can't see.

Students are provided with drawings of three methods to collect gases and the characteristics of four gases. Students match the gases with the method of collection that would need to be used.

Students are provided with four diagrams of different types of fossils. Students are asked to explain the type of information each of these fossils could provide.