Science / Year 3 / Science Inquiry Skills / Questioning and predicting

Curriculum content descriptions

With guidance, identify questions in familiar contexts that can be investigated scientifically and make predictions based on prior knowledge (ACSIS053)

Elaborations
  • choosing questions to investigate from a list of possibilities
  • jointly constructing questions that may form the basis for investigation
  • listing shared experiences as a whole class and identifying possible investigations
  • working in groups to discuss things that might happen during an investigation
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
ScOT terms

Predictions (Science),  Research questions

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Every drop counts, being water wise!

This activity aims to explore water usage and water saving ideas. Every drop counts! OUTCOMES are for children to: understand the importance of water; look at ways to help save water; and undertake a water audit.

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Unit for Year 3 to 4 Butterflies: Engaging with nature

This unit of work engages students in preparing butterfly gardens in their schoolgrounds. It explores scientific entomology, features of caterpillars and butterflies, the lifecycle of butterflies, survival requirements, and the characteristics of butterfly gardens. The unit includes worksheets, assessment ideas, pictures, ...

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Living world – Stage 2

In this lesson sequence, students identify characteristics of living things and distinguish living things from non-living things. They identify and describe patterns and understand how scientists use external features to group living and non-living things. Students describe and follow a sequence of steps involving decisions ...

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Work sample Year 3 Science: Disappearing ice cubes

This work sample demonstrates evidence of student learning in relation to aspects of the achievement standards for Year 3 Science. The primary purpose for the work sample is to demonstrate the standard, so the focus is on what is evident in the sample not how it was created. The sample is an authentic representation of ...

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Impacts of mining

Identify how mines affect the environment and investigate ways of reducing the effects. This student worksheet comprises a diagram showing activities at a mine site and a table to be completed by the student. Students use the table to summarise environmental effects of the mine and the actions taken at the site to reduce ...

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Indigenous Science: shell middens and fish traps

This is an article about Aboriginal shell middens along the Queensland coast and the information they provide about Aboriginal food collection practices. Written by Kudjala/Kalkadoon Elder from Queensland Letitia Murgha and intended mainly for teachers, it describes how shell middens were created over thousands of years ...

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Ngan'gi seasons calendar

This is a seasonal calendar developed by the Ngan’gi people of the Northern Territory in collaboboration with CSIRO. The resource contains an introduction, a richly illustrated calendar and related links. The introduction includes information about the people’s wish to document traditional knowledge of their Daly River ...

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Coal and its uses

Find out where we get the coal that powers our homes and industries. This is a PowerPoint presentation outlining how coal is formed, mined, processed and used. All slides contain images or maps. Teachers' notes are included.

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Energy efficiency in homes

Find out how to save energy at home and reduce your carbon footprint. This fact sheet describes strategies that can be used in the home to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

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Bushfire education: types of fires - good and bad

This is a teacher resource containing a lesson plan that provides guidelines for class discussion about why some fires are helpful while others cause problems, and includes suggestions for activities and games that will encourage awareness of fire safety. High-quality photographs that can be used to assist the discussion ...

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Aboriginal science tools: the morah stone

This is an article about morah stones, incised grinding stones from the tropical rainforests of northern Queensland, and how they were used by the local Aboriginal peoples to process toxic starchy seeds and kernels. Written by Kudjala/Kalkadoon Elder from Queensland Letitia Murgha and intended mainly for teachers, it describes ...

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Science principles in traditional Aboriginal Australia

This is an illustrated article about how Aboriginal people's traditional knowledge demonstrates an understanding of physics, biology and chemistry and how Aboriginal people gather knowledge through observation, testing, trial and error, adapting and retesting. Written by Kudjala/Kalkadoon Elder from Queensland Letitia ...

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Oxyfuel combustion

This fact sheet describes oxyfuel combustion, the technology that burns fuel in almost pure oxygen. Because this makes it easier to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas, there is the potential to achieve near-zero carbon dioxide emissions from the production of coal-fired electricity. A diagram illustrating this process ...

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Renewable sources of energy

This is a worksheet consisting of a blank data table designed for students to record information resulting from their research into renewable energy resources. It specifies the types of energy resources to be investigated and suggests topics for research focus.

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Rehabilitation on North Stradbroke Island

Find out how miners plan for and carry out revegetation of sand mining sites. This is a PowerPoint presentation that shows the pre-mine surveys, planning, plant propagation, dune re-profiling and maintenance work carried out by Consolidated Rutile Limited (CRL) in rehabilitating land on North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, ...

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Activity: cool questions and activities about wildlife

This is a web resource that provides a teacher guide for a class lesson about types of living things, accompanied by a student activity sheet. The teacher guide provides a lesson plan with questions about mammals, birds, insects and plants and suggests a class discussion about why we need them. The student activity sheet ...

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Creating a bee hotel: construction

As we clear land for urban development, and for broadacre farming, we remove the spaces where bees nest and find their food. With no food, and nowhere to produce their young, native bee populations are under threat of local extinction. In this activity, we will look at providing nesting spaces for native bees which mimic ...

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Investigating the soil food web

Soil is much more than just dirt. In this activity, learners will be conducting an investigation to see which animals and other organisms are recycling nutrients in the garden. These organisms make up the soil food web, which includes microscopic bacteria, fungi, minute creatures such as springtails, worms, pill-bugs and ...

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Creating a bee hotel: research

Explore the different types of bees common to Australia, their features including how they are different to flies and wasps. We will focus on native bees, specifically to learn about their nesting habitat. This learning activity is the first part of a sequence of 2 individual learning activities focused on creating a bee ...

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Water for wildlife

With Australia’s changing climate we need to adapt to our altering conditions. This is challenging but also possible for humans through behaviour change and infrastructure change (too advanced?) but not quite so easy for our precious wildlife. While water is considered renewable as it functions as part of a water cycle, ...