This term students from Prep to Grade 6 have been investigating a range of topics that include materials, sound as energy and solids, liquids, and gases. Each grade group has been exploring an inquiry question relevant to their developing understanding and progression of learning across our school years. Check out the questions below and a snapshot of some of the learning opportunities provided.

Prep: What are materials made of?

Students have been working with Mrs Howell to explore what things are made of what is a material, what do materials look and feel like. They are finishing the term building houses made from different materials BUT the big bad wolf is coming (hair dryer), and they are going to see if their houses survive the wolf.

Grade 1/2: What happens when we make sound?

What is sound? How is sound made? Can we make sound? Is sound electrical energy? Can we make things move with sound? These are some big questions that we have been exploring in 1/2 classes this term. We have made sounds, with homemade instruments and actual instruments. We have learnt that sound is made when there is movement, when a movement happens it causes vibration which creates sound. We have moved rice and sprinkles with sound energy and learnt about volume and pitch. Families would have seen our pitch straws that allowed students to experiment with high and low pitch. We have explored how an ear works and recently we have been learning about echo and echolocation in dolphins and bats. Students have been every interested in learning about sounds and sound energy.

Grade 3/4: How do materials change when heated and cooled?

We began our term with an experiment about seed dispersal from our term 1 learning and from this we learnt that we need to improve our science investigation skills during experiments. This led us into our explorations of solids and liquids. We have been exploring custard and learning that it can act like a solid and a liquid because it is a non-Newtonian gel that does not act like a true solid or true liquid. Next on the journey is to begin exploring what happens to liquids when frozen and learn about change of states due to heating and cooling.

Grade 4-5-6: What is matter and how is it different?

It has been a challenging term as we have grappled with the states of matter, that include solids, liquids and gases at an invisible level. Realising that everything is made up of matter and what the particles look like in matter has been interesting, challenging and eye opening. Understanding how invisible particles are arranged helps us to understand the properties of matter and how matter behaves. Based on its behaviours we can determine if it is a solid, liquid or gas. We have been conducting a number of experiments to explore solids and have begun exploring liquids and the different viscosity of a liquid and what this means for the particles in this matter.