Students compare drawings of a healthy and unhealthy plant, collect data, and decide which data distinguishes them. This is a mathematics/science resource.
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.
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.
Task: Students interpret information about couch grass from a diagram and explain why its special features make it difficult to get rid of. Assessment focus: special features ensure a plant's survival.
Task: Demonstrate understanding of the pupil reflex of the eye, and apply this to answering questions about sunglasses safety. Extension questions probe understanding of who decides on and applies safety standards. Assessment focus: effect of UV light on the eyes and how it can be mediated by simple sunglasses technology.
Task: Use understandings about heat energy and insulation to describe how adaptations help Emperor penguins survive in Antarctica. Assessment focus: adaptations for keeping warm in cold conditions.
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.
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: 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 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.
Task: Use information about differences between moths and butterflies to decide which category examples belong to, and identify what evidence was used. Assessment focus: observation, using evidence.
Task: Watch a video of two sofas burning, record the results, and use the evidence to make inferences about fire retardants. Assessment focus: using observations to provide evidence.