Science 3-6

This term, Grade 3 students are exploring how heat works in our everyday world including different sources of heat and how heat moves from warmer objects to cooler ones.   

Students are also developing their understanding of temperature — what it means to be hot or cold — and how we measure it using a thermometer. They are discovering how temperatures change when heat moves from one object to another: through conduction (direct contact), convection (movement through air or liquid), and radiation (heat we feel from the sun). 

We have looked at what helps keep a house warm in winter and cool in summer. They created model houses and used them to explain how different features and design choices can affect the temperature inside a home.  

Grade 4 students have been learning about how living things depend on each other for survival and how they are connected within different environments. 

We have explored how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals. We learned about producers (plants that make their own food), consumers (animals that eat plants or other animals), and decomposers (living things like worms and fungi that break down waste and dead matter). Students have developed an understanding of how each of these play an important role in keeping ecosystems healthy. 

Students have explored their school yard as a local habitat, observing living things and documenting whether they are producers, consumers or decomposers. We have learnt how energy moves from plants to animals in a food chain. Students have created and compared food chains from different habitats.  

We explored what can happen when a food chain is disrupted. Using the example of numbats, students watched a video which showed how rangers in NSW have created protected areas where numbats can live safely without the threat of feral cats. We discussed how these protected zones have helped increase numbat numbers in Australia. 

Grade 5 and 6 students have been exploring the ways living things survive in their environments. They are learning todescribe different habitats and how the structural features and behaviours of plants and animals support their survival. 

Through class experiments students have identified behavioural and physical adaptationsin animals and discussed how these features help meet animal’s needs. They are looking at how adaptations change how an animal behaves.  

Students are also investigating the important role of camouflage in survival and exploring First Nations Australians’ knowledge of animal structures. We are making slideshows about a chosen animal, it’s habitat, adaptations and whether they are prey, predator or both. Once complete, we will present these to the class.