Science capabilities resources

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

Task: Using statements from four people decide and justify whether or not each person supports wind farms. Identify which person has a misconception about wind farms, giving a reason. Assessment focus: identifying different perspectives.

Task: Answer questions about a table comparing the energy usage and lifespan of different sorts of lights, and use this information to complete a second table to describe advantages and disadvantages of each. Assessment focus: reading a technical table.

Task: Discuss opinions, presented as a concept cartoon, about why a toy car rolled down a slope eventually stops and develop group explanation. Assessment focus: explanations

Task: Match statements about materials that sound travels through, with corresponding science idea. Assessment focus: choosing evidence to support a science idea.

Students answer three questions about data contained in pie graphs about the food wild cats eat.

Task: Students decide whether four dinosaurs are meat-eaters or plant-eaters, and justify their answers. A list of features of each group is provided. It may be completed individually or as a group assessment. Assessment focus: using evidence.

Task: Dictate what is observed from viewing a video clip of a monarch butterfly emerging from a chrysalis (answering a specific question), and sequence some photographs in the correct order. Assessment focus: observing and describing.

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

Task: Choose images to enhance a science text about an adaptation of kererū, compare the messages of images, and reflect on the role of illustrations in science texts. Assessment focus: using and interpreting images in science texts.

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

Use knowledge of insulation to answer questions about baked Alaska dessert, and how it compares to a chilly bin. Assessment focus: Interpreting diagrams, interpreting analogies, and using knowledge of insulation.