Science & Technologies

Description

The Science & Technologies subject will draw on the Year 5 and 6 Science and Technologies: Digital Technologies Victorian Curriculum Learning Areas, which are focused on:

• Recognising questions that can be investigated scientifically and undertaken via investigations;

• The use of technologies to create innovative solutions that meet current and future needs.

Students will be provided opportunities to develop an understanding of important scientific concepts and processes, the practices used to develop scientific knowledge, the contribution of science to our culture and society, and its applications in our lives. The curriculum supports students to develop the scientific knowledge, understandings and skills to make informed decisions about local, national and global issues.

Students will be encouraged to make decisions about the development and use of technologies, considering the impacts of technological change and how technologies may contribute to a sustainable future. The curriculum provides practical opportunities for students to be users, designers and producers of new technologies.

Learning Standards

Scientific Understanding

Students will:

• Explain how scientific knowledge is used in decision making and develops from many people’s contributions.

• Discuss how scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions affect peoples’ lives.

• Learn about:

• Observable changes: reversible or irreversible

• Energy transformation to generate electricity

• Natural events causing rapid change to Earth’s surface

• Key features of our Solar System

• Growth and survival of living things

Scientific Skills

Students will follow the scientific inquiry process when conducting investigations, which includes:

• Questioning and predicting

• Planning and conducting

• Recording and measuring

• Analysing and evaluating

• Communicating

Digital Systems

Students will:

• Explain the functions of digital system components and how digital systems are connected to form networks that transmit data.

Data and Information

Students will:

• Explain how digital systems use whole numbers as a basis for representing a variety of data types.

• Manage the creation and communication of ideas, information and digital projects collaboratively using validated data and agreed protocols.

Creating Digital Solutions

Students will:

• Define problems in terms of data and functional requirements and design solutions by developing algorithms to address the problems.

• Incorporate decision-making, repetition and user interface design into their designs and develop their digital solutions, including a visual program.

• Explain how information systems and their developed solutions meet current and future needs taking sustainability into account.

Assessment

Students will be assessed in a variety of ways including, but not limited to:

• Individual tasks

• Group tasks

• Oral presentations

• Conducting experiments

• Report writing

• Design, creation and evaluation of products