Investigating in science resources

Task: Make a sound gun and use it to investigate what happens to a candle when the end of the sound gun is tapped. Assessment focus: sound waves.

Students carry out and make observations about water in a straw, and suction. Students are then required to explain their observations.

Students describe the images seen in flat and convex mirrors.

Students investigate energy transfer by colliding marbles, explaining their observations, and what happens to the energy of the moving marble on impact.

Explain what affects the distance travelled by toy cars, and why they eventually stop. Assessment focus: science explanations using ideas about forces and energy.

For this practical task students investigate convection currents when tea leaves are placed into a beaker of water that is being heated. They are asked to make observations and to provide an explanation of what they have observed.

Task: Predict, observe and explain what will happen when a balloon containing another balloon filled with water is thrown. Assessment focus: making and explaining predictions and observations.

Task: Predict, observe and explain what will happen when a balloon containing another balloon filled with water is thrown. Assessment focus: making and explaining predictions and observations.

Task: Predict, observe and explain what will happen when a balloon containing another balloon filled with water is thrown. Assessment focus: making and explaining predictions and observations.

Students predict and investigate the way in which a concave and a convex lens distort the image of a pencil.

Students carry out a simple experiment to illustrate refraction. They then explain why this happened.

Students are asked to explain why the Southern Cross appears not to be in the same place in the night sky that it was a few months previously.

This task requires students to develop questions about their local geology and name possible information sources.

This practical task requires students to make observations of three different types of soils and record their observations in a chart.

For this practical task students investigate and report on what they noticed about a model river and how different sized materials are moved by the water.

For this practical students make observations about dissolving, and plan and carry out an investigation to find out what makes sugar dissolve more quickly.

For this practical task students are assessed on their ability to observe changes that have occurred to 'popping' corn before and after it is heated. Drawings and written observations are required.

From a diagram of an experimental set up, students answer questions based on fair testing principles. Questions cover the control of variables, and measurement of results.

This practical task investigates the effect of temperature on the rate at which corn pops. Students collect data and make a conclusion.

Describe methods for speeding up and slowing down melting of an ice cube using one of three provided objects, and explain why the methods would work. Assessment focus: planning an investigation.

This practical task requires students to describe to a partner their observations about an ice cube melting. Students then develop questions about what they observe.

This practical task requires students to make observations of the changes that occur in five common foods as they are cooked.

This practical task assesses students' ability to record and graph data, and draw conclusions, as they conduct an experiment on the rate at which an ice cube melts in different temperatures.

For this practical task students complete a table of observations for the following substances: vinegar, baking soda, and vinegar and baking soda mixed together.

For this practical task students follow a plan to determine the effects of a weak acid on different building materials. Students need to put their results into a table and write a conclusion.