Students state what things will affect how far a cube will travel when flicked in the middle with a ball-point pen, and conduct an experiment to see what happens in practice.
Task: Answer questions about a monarch butterfly's life cycle. Assessment focus: insect life cycle.
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A poem and brief article about Japanese dolls is the context for this comprehension resource that has focus on comparisons and purpose. SJ-2-2-1983. Text provided.
Students read an article and are assessed on their ability to retrieve information and to make inferences in response to two questions about geologists.
Task: Students make predictions about evaporation rates of instances where surface areas are a factor, select which variable is being investigated in both examples and explain their answer. Assessment focus: Using knowledge of surface area to make predictions.
Assessment focus: ability to use contextual clues to infer meaning of a word. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Using this Resource section.) SJ-4-3-2004. Text provided.
Plan an investigation to find out which of two students' predictions is correct, and identify how to recognise what a result would look like. Assessment focus: identifying what to measure or compare to answer a science question.
Task: Identify from an experiment the preferred living conditions of slaters, and use a fact file to suggest reasons why. Assessment focus: interpreting results of an investigation.
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: Describe and compare some physical properties of plastic objects and identify the properties scientists might use for classifying materials. Assessment focus: classifying using physical properties.
Task: Look at the arrangement of fibres for four different paper towels, arrange an appropriate sequence of instructions, carry out the instructions and then communicate the data in an appropriate graph that will help answer the question. Different elements of the nature of science are embedded throughout the tasks. Assessment focus: planning and carrying out a fair test, using evidence to answer a question.
Students interpret two cartoon-style drawings of the enhanced greenhouse effect and write a short description of the artist’s message, as they see this.
Students read a narrative that is about being different and about group dynamics. Assessment focus: an evaluation of characters and the author's construction of them. (A link to the text is provided. Reading age <8.) SJ-1-4-2005. Text provided.