Curriculum Connections
Strand: Science and Technology
Sub-strand: Living things
Design Context: design and production (students investigate, design, produce, test and evaluate an evidence-based solution).
Science and Technology
This Project-Based Learning (PBL) unit is designed for Stage 2 (Year 4), with the chosen outcomes and priorities demonstrating both scientific understanding and applied design thinking through an authentic, real-world challenge.
ST2-SCI-01:
"Uses information to investigate the solar system and the effects of energy on living systems." (NESA, 2024)
ST2-DDT-01:
"Uses a design process to create products to address user needs or opportunities." (NESA, 2024)
Content (NESA, 2024)
Living things depend on energy and materials to survive:
Identify the Earth systems that make up the environment: atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere.
Describe how the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere provide the needs of living things.
Describe the relationship between habitat, ecosystem and environment.
Design and Production (NESA, 2024)
Identifying and defining
Research and planning
Producing and implementing
Testing and evaluating
English
EN2-OLC-01: Communicates understanding through discussions.
"Communicates with familiar audiences for social and learning purposes by interacting, understanding and presenting." (NESA, 2022)
EN2-CWT-02: Communicates ideas through informative writing.
"Plans, creates and revises written texts for informative purposes, using text features, sentence-level grammar, punctuation and word-level language for a target audience." (NESA, 2022)
Conceptual Knowledge
Through this PBL unit, students develop conceptual knowledge of Earth's interconnected systems and their role in supporting life. They explore how environmental change affects habitats and biodiversity, and how sustainable design and informed scientific evidence can improve the resilience of school environments.