MAKING SENSE OF THE NATURE OF SCIENCE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO TECHNOLOGY: LEVEL 2

ACHIEVEMENT OBJECTIVES

Students can

use a variety of methods to investigate different ideas about the same object or event;
investigate and describe how simple items of technology work;
investigate the way common items of technology have developed.

Students could be learning by:

testing students' ideas about how plants respond to light (L 2.4);
sharing and exploring ideas about where the water goes when things dry (M 2.3);
working in groups to come up with a report on the range of ideas about what causes day and night (E 2.3);
discussing how and why we use eating utensils, such as forks, knives, and chopsticks (M 2.2);
discussing and reporting on what life would be like without zips or velcro (M 2.2, P 2.4);
dismantling a pencil sharpener and comparing it with others (P 2.4);
listening to a story about the person who invented the telephone, to appreciate the role of people in such developments (P 2.4);
visiting a museum to find out about inventions and how people have used them
(P 2.4, M 2.4).

Teachers and students could assess the students':

understanding that people can hold different ideas about the same thing, when the students prepare a chart displaying a range of ideas they have about shadows;
knowledge that there can be a number of solutions to a problem, when the students write simple sentences to explain a variety of ways that food can be kept cold;
knowledge of the development of bicycles, when the students arrange a number of photographs of bicycles in historical order;
ability to carry out an investigation when students determine (from a range of provided materials) the best type of material from which to make a simple parachute or the best shape for the hull of a toy boat.