Science resources

Task: View photograph to explain how a chiton protects itself in its environment. Assessment focus: identifying features that help to protect an animal in its particular environment.

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 answer three questions about air pressure in balloons, why helium balloons float, and why a popped balloon makes a noise.

Task: Describe what happens to water on black plastic and explain why. Assessment focus: effect of colour on heat retention.

Task: Complete a table to show how energy is transformed in eight objects and describe the energy transformations in two others. Assessment focus: energy transformation.

From a key of terms (heat, kinetic, light, potential and sound), students select the word which describes some common examples of energy change.

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

Students are asked to match six everyday objects to the main energy transformation that occurs in each of these objects.

Students are given an experimental setup of heating water with a burning peanut and are asked how they could change this in three ways to get a greater temperature increase. Students are also asked to give two important experimental conditions that should remain the same if the experiment was repeated.

For this task students look at a diagram showing household electrical wires and then answer some questions about these.

Students describe the images seen in flat and convex mirrors.

Task: Predict, observe, and explain where a piece of wood floats in a container of water and oil. Assessment focus: flotation related to density; explaining predictions.

For this task students select two kinds of activity from those labelled on a diagram of an erupting volcano. Students write a description and the problems or dangers associated with each activity.

Task: Predict which of three balls dropped from different heights will squash most, explain why, and design an investigation to test prediction. Assessment focus: acceleration and fair testing.

This practical task assesses students' ability to design and carry out a fair test on the relationship between slope and rates of erosion.

Students first do the science activity Throwing balloons 3 or Throwing balloons 4 where they predict, observe, and explain what will happen when a balloon containing another balloon filled with water is thrown. Then the students do this resource's writing task where they describe the balloon and what happens when it is thrown, and explain why they think it moved the way it did. Six annotated exemplars of student scripts (writing) are included under the "Working with Students" tab.

Task: Use features of velociraptors to make inferences about their life style. Assessment focus: using evidence to make inferences.

Students select from four pictures of laden trucks which is least likely to roll over when cornering, and explain their predictions. This resource assesses students' understanding of centre of gravity.

This practical task requires students to follow an experimental design that investigates various forms of insulation. They are required to gather results, make a conclusion, and identify the variables.

Task: Interpret data from tables. Assessment focus: data interpretation.

Students explain how the parts of a torch help it work.

Students are given some information about simple machines, and are asked to label the effort, load, and pivot on three examples of simple machines.

For this practical task students write a plan to find out if a microwave has a 'hot spot'. Students carry out their plan, collect, and interpret results.

Students answer two multiple choice questions about fair testing in the context of static electricity.

Students answer a multiple choice question about what happens when a magnetised object is cut in half, and then draw the lines of the magnetic field around two magnets.