Science / Year 7 / Science Inquiry Skills / Evaluating

Curriculum content descriptions

Use scientific knowledge and findings from investigations to evaluate claims based on evidence (ACSIS132)

Elaborations
  • using the evidence provided by scientific investigations to evaluate the claims or conclusions of their peers
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
ScOT terms

Evidence,  Evaluation

Text

ACMF: Effects of selective breeding

This resource is a web page providing information about an experiment on the growth rate of different chicken breeds carried out by students at James Ruse Agricultural High School in NSW, which shows the influence of selective breeding on chicken weight. It includes a side-by-side column graph comparing the weight of egg ...

Interactive

Aim to Sustain

Students identify and explore ways in which human activity can threaten biodiversity and the health of our planet. Students are encouraged to take positive action to promote sustainability. The four resources: Get the message, Help a habitat, Alien invaders and A world of difference include videos, SMART notebooks, worksheets ...

Interactive

Aim to sustain: Get the message

This resource is a subset of the larger resource, Aim to Sustain. As such it includes the culminating activity in which students study and make artworks that communicate an environmental message about single use and disposable plastics. The resource includes links to video, a slideshow, worksheets and links to further interactive ...

Interactive

Science under the microscope

A student-focused mobile web application that tests students? knowledge of the NSW Science curriculum. It will reuse videos and other components of 2010 Murder under the Microscope (Shockwave on the Shoreline) to provide a series of clues that unfold as the student answers science questions correctly. After receiving all ...

Interactive

Aim to sustain: A world of difference

Students explore what is happening at an individual, community and global level and plan actions they will take. These may range from taking a quiz to sharing knowledge about being 'green' at home, through to planning a conference session to deliver to other students. The resource includes videos, SMART notebooks, worksheets ...

Video

Daniel O'Doherty

This 5 minute video segment from Catalyst describes how a school student conducted his own scientific investigation. Daniel O'Doherty was intrigued to find out what was the carbon impact of travel to and from school each day, and what could be done to reduce this impact. His project won the 2008 Action Against Climate Change ...

Video

Experimentals: Name these mystery objects

Compete in a game show against characters Einstein and Pythagoras to identify three different mystery objects. Each of the objects is the end product of a science demonstration. Compare your ideas and predictions with the host Bernie Hobbs's identification of the objects and her explanation of the science behind them.

Video

Four Corners: Fire management strategies

What role do fire-behaviour specialists and ecologists have in fire management? Watch this clip to find out about issues relating to fire management in Australia, in particular prescribed burning.

Video

For good measure

If you had to measure the rain level for the whole globe, how would you go about it so you could have as accurate a reading as possible? Rain gauges are great for measuring rain in small areas, but why might they not be as good for measuring large areas? Watch this video to see how the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) ...

Video

Catalyst: Tsunami prevention in the Pacific

By investigating sediments and debris left by devastating tsunamis throughout history, Japanese scientists are making discoveries that change the way we understand disaster prevention in the Pacific. Watch as research teams examine rocks and mud layers; create digital simulations of past tsunamis; and investigate the seabed ...

Video

Catalyst: What is a megafire?

Join Catalyst reporter Anja Taylor as she visits the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico and discovers the impacts of recent megafires on the landscape there. What is a megafire? And how is a megafire different from a regular wildfire? How have recent fires permanently transformed the landscapes that Anja and Professor Craig ...

Interactive

Energy chains: energy use

Select energy sources and energy converters to build energy chains to power appliances and vehicles. Examine how each energy converter in a chain loses some energy and reduces the energy available for use. For example, show that using a solar panel and an electric motor to drive a car delivers only 16% of the original ...

Interactive

Who's for dinner?

Look closely at a food chain and food web from a billabong habitat. Help animals to feed and survive. Play the role of a tadpole, fish or heron. Help the animal to grow and breed by feeding and avoiding predators. Notice that eating high-value food sources may increase an animal's risk of being attacked by predators.

Interactive

Wild ride: get a grip

Investigate the role of friction in performance of bicycle tyres. Test how the type of tread affects grip and speed. Choose tyres best suited to track and weather conditions in a time trial. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.

Image

Orrery, c1770 - part 2

This is a mechanical model of part of the solar system, commonly known as an orrery, manufactured by English mathematician and instrument maker Benjamin Martin in about 1770. This bronze model features a cylindrical clockwork mechanism with an orb representing the Sun placed in the centre. Extending from this on an arm ...

Online

Secondary science: models and simulations

These seven learning activities, which focus on 'models and simulations' using a variety of tools (software) and devices (hardware), illustrate the ways in which content, pedagogy and technology can be successfully and effectively integrated in order to promote learning. In the activities, teachers assist students to interpret, ...

Video

Catalyst: How will fire change the climate?

Considering the impact of a changing climate on the severity and frequency of fires is one thing, but how about the impact of fires on climate? Why does Professor David Bowman describe this scenario as a 'fire spiral'? What are the consequences of a world with fewer forests? As Professor Craig Allen explains, drought and ...

Interactive

In digestion

Follow the passage of food through the human body. Select foods and drinks and decide how to digest them. For example, choose to chew, to add saliva to the mouth or add gastric juices to the stomach. Watch how the body reacts to changes. Find out more about digestion along the way and answer questions.

Interactive

Seasons

Control the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. Work out how the Earth’s orbit and the tilt of its axis determine seasons in the different hemispheres. Work out how the Earth’s orbit and the tilt of its axis determine day length in the different hemispheres. Examine the heating effect of the Sun. Compare seasons ...

Video

Testing the 5-second rule

When it comes to dropping food, have you heard of the 5-second rule? Or the 3-second rule? Watch this video to learn what really happens when you drop food. In order to cause disease, what must bacteria do? What circumstances allow bacteria and viruses to contaminate food more successfully?