Use evidence resources

Task: Answer questions about car tyres. Assessment focus: friction; air pressure.

This practical task requires students to use a plastic comb and wool to generate static electricity. Students investigate different materials to find those that are attracted to the static charge.

Students formulate questions about glaciers and climate change to show awareness that informed opinions are based on inter-related aspects of evidence rather than individual instances.

Students use the Modified Mercalli intensity scale to assign magnitudes to three described earthquakes. Then they interpret data about the distance from an epicentre, and explain why, from given information, one earthquake might be more damaging than another.

Students use diagrams of rock layers to answer questions concerning geological history, oldest layer, and to account for the presence of fossils.

Task: Students decide what sort of animals two skulls belong to. A self-assessment checklist is included. Assessment focus: using evidence to identify carnivores and herbivores.

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

Task: circle the animals that are birds, then write two ways to tell they are birds. Assessment focus: classification.

Students are given four pictures, and are asked to draw a circle around the picture that is not a bird, and then give a reason for their choice. Similarly, they circle animals that are not mammals, fish, and molluscs.

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: Make careful observations of objects in a picture to assess the size of one of the objects.

Students combine their observations with some information provided to complete a story about what might have happened in the photograph.

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.

Task: Answer questions about the fire triangle. Assessment focus: elements necessary for combustion.

Students use their knowledge of the fire triangle to identify risk factors for a given scenario, and apply this to their own situation. They use rubrics to rate and improve some of their explanations.

Students answer three multiple-choice questions about fossils and how they are formed.

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.

Students use a table on solubility/insolubility of 16 compounds to determine the validity of four statements and justify with evidence from the table.

Information on particle size and boiling point is provided for three alcohols. Students use this to place these substances in order of particle size and increasing boiling point.

Students select which type of sugar would dissolve fastest and explain why.

This task consists of two multiple-choice questions on humidity.

Students classify five described changes as either a chemical or a physical change.

Students explain the terms physical and chemical change. Then they read a passage of text and identify the six changes that have occurred and state if each change is a physical or a chemical change.

Students are asked to give a useful property for each of four materials used in different situations.