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Science
Core Competencies
Big Ideas
Grandes idées
Living things have features and behaviours that help them survive in their environment.
Living things have features and behaviours that help them survive in their environment
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- How do local plants and animals depend on their environment?
- How do plants and animals use their features to respond to stimuli in their environments?
- How do plants and animals adapt when their basic needs are not being met?
Matter is useful because of its properties.
Matter is useful because of its properties
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- What makes the properties of matter useful?
- How do the properties of materials help connect to the function of materials?
Light and sound can be produced and their properties can be changed.
Light and sound can be produced and their properties can be changed
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- How can you explore the properties of light and sound?
- What discoveries did you make?
Observable patterns and cycles occur in the local sky and landscape.
Observable patterns and cycles occur in the local sky and landscape
- Sample questions to support inquiry with students:
- What kinds of patterns in the sky and landscape are you aware of?
- How do patterns and cycles in the sky and landscape affect living things?
Learning Standards
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Curricular Competencies
Students are expected to be able to do the following:
Questioning and predicting
Questioning and predictingQuestioning and predictingForm and function: Form and function refer to something being designed, structured or shaped in a way that will help it perform a certain function or functions. For example, the fins of fish help them propel themselves through the water. The human skeleton provides protection for organs, and support for muscles, and allows people to stand upright. Science recognizes this important relationship between form and function.- Key questions about form and function:
- What structural features of plants and animals in your local environment help those plants and animals to function well?
- How do the properties of natural materials (e.g., wood) help determine useful functions for the materials?
Questioning and predicting
Form and function: Form and function refer to something being designed, structured or shaped in a way that will help it perform a certain function or functions. For example, the fins of fish help them propel themselves through the water. The human skeleton provides protection for organs, and support for muscles, and allows people to stand upright. Science recognizes this important relationship between form and function.- Key questions about form and function:
- What structural features of plants and animals in your local environment help those plants and animals to function well?
- How do the properties of natural materials (e.g., wood) help determine useful functions for the materials?
Demonstrate curiosity and a sense of wonder about the world
Observe objects and events in familiar contexts
Ask questions about familiar objects and events
Make simple predictions about familiar objects and events
Planning and conducting
Make and record observations
Safely manipulate materials to test ideas and predictions
Make and record simple measurements using informal or non-standard methods
Processing and analyzing data and information
Experience and interpret the local environment
Recognize First Peoples stories (including oral and written narratives), songs, and art, as ways to share knowledge
Sort and classify data and information using drawings, pictographs and provided tables
Compare observations with predictions through discussion
Identify simple patterns and connections
Evaluating
Compare observations with those of others
Consider some environmental consequences of their actions
Applying and innovating
Take part in caring for self, family, classroom and school through personal approaches
Transfer and apply learning to new situations
Generate and introduce new or refined ideas when problem solving
Communicating
Communicate observations and ideas using oral or written language, drawing, or role-play
Express and reflect on personal experiences of place
place
Place is any environment, locality, or context with which people interact to learn, create memory, reflect on history, connect with culture, and establish identity. The connection between people and place is foundational to First Peoples perspectives of the world.- Key questions about place:
- What is place?
- What are some ways in which people experience place?
- How can you gain a sense of place in your local environment?
- How can you share your observations and ideas about living things in your local environment to help someone else learn about place?
Content
Students are expected to know the following:
classification of living and non-living things
classification
- Is it living or non-living? Is it a plant, animal or something else?
- differences between conventional scientific and indigenous ways of classifying
names of local plants and animals
names
e.g., common, indigenous and scientific structural features of living things in the local environment
structural features
How do stems, roots, leaves, skeleton or no skeleton or exoskeleton, lots of legs, few legs, eyes, etc. help us understand organisms? behavioural adaptations of animals in the local environment
behavioural adaptations
dormancy, hibernation, nesting, migration, catching food, camouflage (stick bugs), mimicry (fly that looks like bee), territorialism (squirrels fighting), etc. specific properties of materials allow us to use them in different ways
specific properties
- solids keep shape; liquids and gases flow
- properties of local materials determine use by First Peoples (local examples: cedar for canoes, mountain goat horns used as spoons, etc.)
natural and artificial sources of light and sound
sources of light
natural sources include the sun; artificial sources include light bulbs Array
natural sources include crickets; artificial sources include car horns properties of light and sound depend on their source and the objects with which they interact
properties of light
- examples: brightness, colour
- objects are made visible by radiating their own light or being illuminated by reflected light
- interactions of light with different objects create images and shadows
- light interactions can make plants grow, make shadows, or cause sunburn, depending on the source and location (seasons depend on light from the sun and how spread out the sun’s rays are)
- plants grow toward light
sound
- examples: pitch, tone, volume
- ways of making, recording, and transmitting sound, etc.
common objects in the sky
common objects in the sky
- the appearance of the moon and stars at night
- sunrise/set, moonrise/set
- the sun and the moon are important in different cultures, with respect to customs and traditions
the knowledge of First Peoples
- shared First Peoples knowledge of the sky
- local First Peoplesknowledge of the local landscape, plants and animalslocal First Peoplese.g., may include oral history with Elder—origins and local stories
- local First Peoples understanding and use of seasonal roundsseasonal roundsSeasonal rounds refers to a pattern of movement from one resource-gathering area to another in a cycle that is followed each year
local patterns that occur on Earth and in the sky
local patterns
the relationship of local weather to the four seasons in terms of temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, and wind Note: Some of the learning standards in the PHE curriculum address topics that some students and their parents or guardians may feel more comfortable addressing at home. Refer to ministry policy regarding opting for alternative delivery.