Communicating in science resources

Task: use information and observation skills to identify whether pictures of fish are either bony fish or sharks. Assessment focus: classification, interpreting a Venn diagram.

Students are provided with a diagram showing rock layers. Students use this diagram to answer a number of questions.

Students are provided with a weather map for the North Island of NZ and interpret this information to answer three short answer questions.

Students are provided with a weather map showing the lower North Island of NZ. Students are required to interpret this map to answer three short answer questions.

Students are provided with a map that has numbers on it representing various ash fall depths from a volcanic eruption. Students draw lines to link the similar numbers and answer questions about these. They also explain three major problems an ash fall could cause.

Using diagrams of 6 different common situations, students are asked to identify each situation as evaporation, condensation, or neither.

Task: Draw, using symbols, circuit diagrams of three described circuits. Assessment focus: using conventions of circuit diagram; knowledge of circuit construction.

For this task students are provided with a table of weather observations for a day in September. Students are required to write a weather report using headings that have been provided.

Students are provided with an illustration of two different circuits. Students are required to draw the two illustrations as circuit diagrams.

Students write a story about the water cycle using a given sequence of events that take place.

Task: Answer two questions about judging model aeroplanes. Assessment focus: reading tables.

Answer questions about a table comparing the energy usage and lifespan of different sorts of lights, and use this information to complete a second table to describe advantages and disadvantages of each. Assessment focus: reading a technical table.

Students are provided with nutritional information on three different types of milk. Students use this information to answer a number of questions.

Task: interpret a graph of a car's journey and add to the graph to represent a further description of the journey. Assessment focus: graph interpretation.

Task: Students answer questions about a soil food web. Assessment focus: reading a food web, systems thinking.

Students match each of seven circuit symbols provided to its respective name. Then the students use the symbols to complete the simple circuit diagram as described.

Task: Use data in a table to construct a graph and answer questions about the patterns. Assessment focus: interpreting tables and graphs.

Students use stimulus material to answer a number of questions relating to temperature change in materials which are at different distances from a heat source.

Task: use a key to identify a fish, then complete a key to identify shellfish. Assessment focus: classification keys.

Students classify 12 common substances as either a compound, mixture, or element.

Task: Students answer questions about a Southern Ocean food web. Assessment focus: interpreting food webs.

Task: students explain links between a bird's feet and its lifestyle.

Use knowledge of insulation to answer questions about baked Alaska dessert, and how it compares to a chilly bin. Assessment focus: Interpreting diagrams, interpreting analogies, and using knowledge of insulation.

This resource requires students to process information on an earthquake. This entails calculating the distance that the recording stations are from an earthquake's epicentre, locating the epicentre, calculating the magnitude, and answering general questions on earthquakes.

Task: Draw what happens when sugar is added to a cup of coffee. Assessment focus: dissolving.