Understanding about science resources

Students are asked to identify a solid, liquid, and a gas. They are also asked to write down two things that are generally true for each of these three states of matter.

Task: Place in order six statements about a series of food chain related events in a beech forest, and justify decisions. Assessment focus: interdependence.

Students are given a diagram and information on the ratios of black- to grey-coated possums. Students answer questions relating to this information as well as identifying a method that could be used to determine the percentage of each coat colour.

Task: students answer questions about features of the fennec fox. Assessment focus: adaptations.

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

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

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: describe how different features of a racing car help it go fast. Assessment focus: technological responses to forces.

Students are provided with a fact file on the tuatara. Students answer four questions that are based on information contained in the fact file.

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.

Students are provided with a diagram of a thermometer and they answer questions on its use, how it works, and then read the temperatures from four thermometers.

Task: Students answer questions about feeding relationships in a rocky shore ecosystem. Assessment focus: interpreting a food web.

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: select which group pictures of animals belong to. Assessment focus: classification of small animals.

Students are given a partially completed table which details materials which are used as either conductors or insulators of heat. Students complete the table by indicating whether the materials conduct or insulate heat or give an example of its use.

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.

For this practical students observe some activities which illustrate melting and dissolving. They write sentences about what they observe and then write what they think melting and dissolving mean.

Reading text to find information about how scientists work. Assessment focus: interpreting information about how scientists work.

Students are provided with drawings of the main types of fingerprints. Students then make their own fingerprint and those of three other students. They then classify and describe the differences between these prints.

In this task, students look for patterns in electron arrangement in the periodic table. They use their ideas to place missing elements in the table, answer some questions about the patterns, and use the patterns to predict the properties of some elements.

Students are provided with a picture of a New Zealand native bird. Students select a word from a given list to name each of these bird parts. Students are then required to explain why the bird needs each of these named parts.

Four different vertebrate animals are illustrated. For each animal the student needs to name the body part used by each animal to move, and then explain how this part makes the animal move.

Students read an article about an investigation into the sustainable harvest of pīkao and identify key features of the investigation. Assessment focus: interpreting information about how scientists work.

Task: Students read a short written text to explain how the special features of wild ginger help it survive. Assessment focus: explanation of wild ginger's special features and why it is a pest plant.

Task: Decide the advantages for survival of both introduced and native frogs' life cycles, explain how climate change could impact on native frogs, and identify level of interest in survival of native frogs. Assessment focus: using information about adaptations.