Science in the New Zealand Curriculum
Achievement objectives
Level 3: Making Sense of the Living World
Students can investigate special features of common animals and plants and describe how these help them stay alive.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 58
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p58_59_e.php
Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes Levels 3 and 4: Reporting
Students can present what they did and what they found out in their investigations in ways and forms appropriate to their peer group.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 47
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Levels 3 and 4: Information Gathering
Students can:
- record observations and measurements
- locate information in the community or libraries
- use information purposefully, asking coherent, directed questions of people and media sources.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 45
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Making Sense of the Nature of Science and its Relationship to Technology
Students can recognise when simple investigations can be classified as a "fair test" and make decisions about the worth of the results.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 30
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p30_31_e.php
The teacher's intended outcomes were for the students to:
- classify creatures in different ways (living things in rock pools)
- gather information from a variety of resources to help them identify living things, and build a knowledge base
- present a summary of their findings in an appropriate way
- demonstrate an awareness of the need to care for the environment.
The intended outcomes were aligned to the following "big ideas":
- Living things are classified according to their features.
- The structures of living things have functions which suit them to the environment in which they live.
- We have a responsibility to care for the environment.
The class was on a school camp at a beach with accessible rock pools for them to study. The students predicted what they might find and recorded their "before" views. They visited the rock pools and recorded their observations focusing on specific features.
Back in the classroom they brainstormed possible questions for further investigation. They worked in pairs, selected a question from the list, and used a variety of written resources to add to their observational records. Each pair produced a wall chart summarising their findings and presented it to the class.
Shellfish, Seaweed, and Stuff (level 2) and Balancing Act (level 4) are other exemplars that show students classifying living things.
Teacher-student conversation
After the study:
| Teacher: |
What advice would you give to a younger brother or sister if they were visiting rock pools? |
| Sam: |
If you move a rock you should carefully turn it back over again, something lives there.
|
| Laura: |
Don't move creatures from one pool to another. They're probably there because it suits them. Be careful not to damage seaweed, because it's a living thing too. |
To move Sam and Laura towards the next learning step the teacher could ask the following questions:
- Can you explain how the structure of a particular creature suits it to living in that environment? (developing and communicating scientific understanding)
- What could be done, and by whom, to help keep the rock pools in their natural state? (developing interest and relating science to the wider world).
The teacher could:
- introduce food chains and food webs in a future study (developing and communicating scientific understanding)
- provide opportunities for Sam and Laura to take ownership of an area of the school or the local environment and be responsible for its care (developing interest and relating science to the wider world).
Reference
Ministry of Education (1993). Science in the New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
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