Science / Year 10 / Science Inquiry Skills / Planning and conducting

Curriculum content descriptions

Plan, select and use appropriate investigation types, including field work and laboratory experimentation, to collect reliable data; assess risk and address ethical issues associated with these methods (ACSIS199)

Elaborations
  • combining research using primary and secondary sources with a student's own experimental investigation
  • using modelling and simulations, including using digital technology, to investigate situations and events
  • deciding how much data are needed to produce reliable measurements
  • considering possible confounding variables or effects and ensuring these are controlled
  • identifying the potential hazards of chemicals or biological materials used in experimental investigations
  • identifying safety risks and impacts on animal welfare and ensuring these are effectively managed within the investigation
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Ethical understanding Ethical understanding
ScOT terms

Experiments,  Data collection,  Ethics,  Safety

Online

Green packaging lesson

This lesson plan engages students in finding ways to reduce plastic waste in food packaging. Students investigate problems created by plastic waste then observe ways these issues are being addressed. They design new packaging for food items that currently produce excessive waste then test their designs objectively. The ...

Interactive

iPlan

This resource contains ten IWB flipcharts as well as Flash alternative exercises and models how to plan a scientific investigation, choose the right equipment and follow safe working practices.

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Designing urban carbon sinks lesson

In this lesson, students learn about the role of vegetation as carbon sinks, conduct field work to evaluate local carbon sinks and explore urban design issues. Students asses their own carbon footprints using the carbon footprint calculator, learn about carbon offset, carbon farming and carbon storage programs. Students ...

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BTN: Living on the International Space Station

What would it be like to live on a space station? In this clip you'll see footage of astronauts on the International Space Station and discover what their daily life is like. You'll also find out about how the space station was built and about some important research being done there.

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Catalyst: The home of Australian science

Australia has a long and proud history of excellence in science. How should we celebrate this? Watch this clip to find out about an Australian organisation that recognises and promotes outstanding scientific achievement. You'll also find why its Canberra headquarters is referred to as 'the flying saucer'!

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Four Corners: Megafires

Are we approaching the 'age of megafires'? It might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but some scientists believe there is cause for concern. Watch this clip to find out how bushfires as we know them are changing. Discover why.

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Can photons and atoms generate laser?

Electrons around atoms can absorb and emit photons of particular colours of light – see three different atomic models explain what's going on.

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Invictus Games Sydney 2018 – Science – Stage 5

Modern prosthetics are developed to offer comfort and practicality in a range of complex environments. This Stage 5 unit, The science and technology of prosthetics and the physics of movement, explores a number of technological advances in the field of prosthetics including material strength, sensors and actuators and osseointegration. ...

Interactive

Series circuits

In this resource, students will use a simulation to build a series circuit with batteries, light bulbs, resistors, and switches. From their experimentation, students will understand how different components affect the circuit, and explore the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance.

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BTN: Curbing the carp population

Find out why European carp fish are called 'river rabbits' in Australia. Listen to how they came to Australia and what makes them such a pest now.Discover how a local entrepreneur is exploiting the new resource while scientists are doing their best to cap the carp population explosion.

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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 ...

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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.

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Catalyst: When does life begin?

The use of embryonic stem cells for medical research is a hotly debated ethical issue, with much of the discussion focusing on when human life begins. Listen to the views both of scientists and of some people from several faith traditions. In a major stem-cell breakthrough, scientists have discovered a new type of stem ...

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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 ...

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Understanding the causes of climate change

Did you know that climate change is not a recent phenomenon? In the past, natural events led to changes in the climate. Although natural events still affect climate, they're not enough to explain the big changes we've been seeing in the last 150 years. What changes on earth can account for such dramatic changes to our climate? ...

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Four Corners: Increasing threat of megafires

Many scientists believe we are already experiencing megafires and that they will continue to increase in the future. In this clip you will hear from Australian scientists at the forefront of fire research. Discover what they have to say about the causes, projections, and consequences of an increased megafire threat.

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Catalyst: Large Hadron Collider discovery, 2012

Have you heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)? Watch this clip to find out about a scientific discovery at the LHC that left physicists uncharacteristically emotional. Catalyst's Dr Derek Muller takes you inside the LHC and talks to scientists there about the discovery of the Higgs boson and what it means for our understanding ...

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Atoms of Fire: What makes salt and sugar so different?

Have you ever accidentally sprinkled sugar on your dinner or spooned salt into your coffee? Those white crystals might look the same but they taste very different because they are made of different kinds of atoms bonded in different ways. Discover how chemists identify what kinds of atoms a compound is made of, then find ...

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Atoms of Fire: Vitalism disproved through evidence

Discover how the scientific theory of vitalism, championed by the Swedish chemist Jöns Berzelius, was disproved by his former student Friedrich Wöhler. Find out the way chemists study how the different atoms in organic compounds combine in set ratios depending on the 'valence' of those atoms.

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Four Corners: Ecological effects of bushfires

Did you know that Australia is the most flammable continent on Earth? Watch this clip to discover how bushfires impact natural ecosystems, and how the increasing global threat of bushfires may affect Australia. Australian scientists explain the ecological consequences of fire and a US expert describes his concerns for the future.