9SCI - SCIENCE

Welcome to Year 9 Science at Wellington College. We hope you find the course stimulating and inspiring! Science is a way of investigating, understanding and explaining our world and the wider universe. The following outline provides a summary of what you will be learning about this year.  

(The content of some of these topics may change slightly; your teacher will keep you informed of this)

INTRODUCTORY UNIT (Term 1)

At the end of this unit you should:

• develop some understanding of what Science is and the importance of Science

• be able to work safely in a laboratory

• know the names and use of some basic laboratory equipment

• be able to use a Bunsen burner safely

• be able to make some simple scientific measurements

• make and test a prediction

OCEAN SCIENCE (Term 1 )

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Understand the terms herbivore, omnivore, carnivore 

• Recognise and name some common species that inhabit the Island Bay Marine Reserve

• Describe a food chain and interpret a food web

• Understand the importance of oceans in te ao Māori

• Explain why we have tides and what causes spring and neap tides 

• Understand how the rocky shore species distribution varies between low and high tide

• Understand what we mean by adaptations and apply this concept to marine organisms

• Develop understanding of the terms elements, compounds, atoms, molecules in the context of water

• Describe the properties of water in the gas, liquid and solid state

• Relate changes in kinetic energy to changes of state

• Investigate the processes of dissolving and evaporation, and how to separate salt from sea water

• Investigate floating and sinking and understand the difference between mass, density and volume

• Investigate the effect of polar ice-caps melting, on sea level rise

• Understand how early Polynesian explorers navigated across the Pacific ocean

COMMUNICATION SCIENCE (Term 2 )

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Understand the role oceans have for sustaining life on Earth in terms of the following ideas:

• Understand the concept of communication, animal communication methods and the role of waves.

• Describe sound, including its production, characteristics and the process of hearing.

• Investigate the properties of light, including reflection, refraction, and the electromagnetic spectrum.

• Identify and describe the parts of the human ear and eye and their functions.

• Explore the structure of the eye through dissection and understand the role of the lens in focusing light.

• Investigate common sight problems and how they can be corrected using concave and convex lenses.

• Practically examine the behaviour of light using mirrors and lenses.

• Explore the use of ultrasound in animal echolocation and human applications.

• Investigate the behaviour of light passing through a rectangular prism and its effect on refraction.

• Understand the use of optical fibres in internet communication.

ALTERED CARBON (Term 3)

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

• understand that life on earth is carbon based and to understand why carbon is essential to life.

• realise that carbon is continuously altered and recycled through biological and physical systems

• understand the basic layout of the periodic table and carbon’s position on the table.

• describe the structure of a carbon atom and to understand how carbon atoms bond to other atoms.

• describe/explain the role of carbon in building plant cell walls

• recognise the 3 features that make define a plant cell and know their functions

• To be able to define and give either a word or chemical equation for photosynthesis.

• describe/explain the role of parts of a leaf in photosynthesis.

• describe four classes of carbon based bio-molecules

•  describe cellular respiration and explain its importance to living organisms

• understand the greenhouse effect and to investigate evidence of global warming.

• Describe the properties of acids and bases and where acids, bases and neutral solutions fall on the pH scale.

•  investigate why ocean temperatures and pH are rising and to explain the effect this has on shellfish and coral reefs

•  understand the concept of a carbon footprint and to consider why it is important to have a small carbon footprint and how I can reduce mine.

LIFE ON MARS (Term 4)

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Recognize and describe the space/distance between planets in our solar system.

• Compare and contrast the characteristics of Mars and Earth.

• Explain the speed of light and calculate the time it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth.

• Understand the concept of forces and their effects on objects.

• Demonstrate the ability to show the direction and size of a force using diagrams.

• Identify when a balanced or unbalanced net force is produced.

• Apply knowledge of force diagrams to design and launch a bottle rocket.

• Analyze and compare the launches of bottle rockets based on design changes.

• Define and convert basic SI units, including velocity, distance, and time.

• Interpret graphs to determine velocity and use appropriate scientific terminology.

• Understand the importance of prototyping and create a Mars Rover prototype.

• Describe the features used to differentiate living and non-living things and identify challenges organisms may face in space or on Mars.

Classwork

Classwork will comprise a combination of theory and practical activities to help you understand important ideas in Science. Often you'll be working in a group, at other times by yourself. There will be lots of opportunities for experiments, to investigate all sorts of concepts. Examples of what you might investigate could include how light travels, how different chemical substances react and what sort of creatures live in the marine environment of the Island Bay marine reserve.

Homework

Short but regular homework tasks will be set using a variety of sources, which may include online tasks via Google Classroom or Education perfect, or from the SciPAD Books 1 and 2 which you have purchased as part of your stationary pack. For additional reading, students are welcome to borrow from the library on long term loan, a copy of ‘Year 9 Pathfinder Science’. The library has multiple copies of this textbook available.

Extra-Curricular STEM opportunities

Your son will be given the opportunity to complete a Science Fair project (this may be completed in groups of up to 3 students); other opportunities will include an inter-college ePro8 competition. A full range of STEM opportunities can be found at the link below.

https://sites.google.com/wc.school.nz/wc-science-extracurricular/home

You'll need a positive attitude, a 2B8 exercise book, Scipad (books 1 and 2), a chromebook or equivalent electronic device and some standard writing equipment. A glue stick and scissors are useful.

This course is assessed using our WC Learning Progression Framework.