Growing seeds (Grade 1)

Learning Objectives
• Know that seeds need water and light to grow
Scientific Enquiry Focus • Make predictions
Making comparisons • Make comparisons

You will need:

Two clear containers
A roll of paper or
cotton wool
Seeds
A watering can

Ana gives her seeds

some water. Marta forgets
to water her seeds.
What do you think
will happen?
Grow some seeds to find out.
Starting the lesson (10 minutes)
Talk with learners about what they think a seed needs to grow. Many learners will think that they need soil, but
most seeds can be germinated without it. Some learners may say that a seed needs light, but seeds mostly
germinate underground in the dark. Once the seedling has grown, the young plant does need light to continue
growing. Explain to learners that water is what seeds need to start growing.

Scientific enquiry
Ask the question ‘will seeds grow without water?’ and ask learners to predict what will happen to the seeds.
Many learners will simply predict whether the seeds will grow or not. Encourage higher achieving learners to
make more detailed predictions about which parts of the plant, if any, will grow first.
Ask learners to make comparisons by drawing pictures of the seeds in each container at different times during
the experiment.

Activity (20 minutes set up, several days for germination)

Place the seeds between rolled up paper or cotton wool and the sides of a transparent container. This makes it
possible to watch the development of the seeds as they grow. Bean and sunflower seeds work well.

Assessment (20 minutes)

Learners could draw a picture of a ‘happy’ seed that has what it needs to grow and a picture of a ‘sad’ seed that
does not. Ask learners to say what seeds need to grow. Ask learners to say what will happen to seeds that do not
get enough water. Ask learners to put pictures of a growing seed in the right order.
Heartbeat and pulse (Grade 6)
Learning Objectives
• Decide when observations and measurements
Scientific Enquiry Focus
need to be checked by repeating to give more
Repeating measurements
reliable data
for reliability • Evaluate repeated results

You will need:

A watch with a second
hand

Find your pulse on your

wrist or neck. Do not use
your thumb to take your
pulse – it has a pulse of
its own.

Starting the lesson (15 minutes)

Check that learners remember that the job of the heart is to pump blood around the body. Ask learners whether
they know how medics can find out how fast a heart is beating. Show learners how to find their pulse in their
wrist or neck. Practice measuring pulse rate by counting the number of beats in one minute.

Scientific enquiry
Ask learners to make predictions about when their heart might beat faster or slower. Try measuring pulse rate
before and after running on the spot for one minute.
Start by taking repeat measurements of pulse rate while at rest. They will not be the same each time. Ask
learners to say what they should do in the investigation to make their results more reliable. Explain if necessary
that recording repeated measurements allows us to compare to see whether each measurement can be trusted.
Sets of three measurements that are similar are likely to be reliable. However two similar measurements and one
that is significantly different suggests that at least one of the measurements is unreliable and should be checked.

Activity (50 minutes)

Some learners find it hard to feel their pulse. They could try holding a hand over their heart to feel it beating
instead. Alternatively, smart phone or tablet apps are available that use the camera to measure the pulse rate.
Count how many beats you feel in one minute. Repeat this three times. Record the results in a table. Is the
number of beats the same each time? Compare your measurements with others in your class. Measure your
pulse at other times during the day, such as after lunch break and just before you go to bed. What trends can
you identify?

Assessment (10 minutes)

Ask learners to say whether they think their results are reliable. They should be able to give reasons for their
answer by describing whether the measurements are similar or different. Ask learners to give their results a
reliability score out of 10 and record it on their work with their reasons for giving that score.
Measuring shadows (Grade 2)
Scientific Enquiry Focus
Taking measurements
Learning Objectives
• Explore how shadows change
• Take simple measurements
• Identify simple patterns and associations

You will need:

Two pencils
Does the length of a
shadow change?
Sticky tack
A clock
Same size bricks
Counters or coins
A large piece of paper
A sunny day

Rita is measuring the length of

shadows.
She wants to answer a question.
Measure the length of a shadow
at different times. What do you
think will happen?
Starting the lesson (10 minutes)
Show learners pictures of people with very long shadows. Ask learners if they have ever seen their own shadow
look similar. Ask ‘why do you think our shadows are sometimes long and sometimes short?’ Remind learners that
shadows are caused by the sun, then ask learners to talk about where they have seen the sun in the sky. Ask ‘is
the sun always in the same place?’ Explain that the sun is low in the sky in the morning and evening but high at
midday. Explain that they are going to investigate how the moving sun affects shadows.

Scientific enquiry
Show learners how to measure accurately by always starting from the base of the shadow stick and laying out
cubes or counters to the end of the shadow. Most learners should record their measurements to the nearest
whole number, but some learners may be able to measure length to the nearest half cube or counter.

Activity (3 x 20 minutes throughout the day)

Learners could practice measuring using cubes or counters in the classroom before starting this activity.
Learners should make at least three measurements, one early in the day when the sun is low, one around midday
and one later on. This will make sure the shadows are of different lengths.

After the investigation, discuss the results with learners. Help them to see the pattern that the lower the sun the
longer the shadow.

Assessment (included in activity)

Observe learners measuring their shadows to check they are doing it correctly. Ask learners to draw the shadow
on their paper each time and write down their measurements. Then the accuracy of their measurements can be
checked afterwards.
Heating and cooling (Grade 2)
Scientific Enquiry Focus
Making comparisons
Learning Objectives
• Explore and describe the way some everyday
materials change when heated or cooled
• Make comparisons
• Identify simple patterns and associations

You will need:

Different foods
Cling film or metal foil
A stopwatch

Wrap up a piece of chocolate. Hold it in your hand

for two minutes.
What do you notice?
Does it make a difference if you hold it for longer?
Try this with other foods.
Compare what happens with the foods. Is there a pattern?

Starting the lesson (10 minutes)

Ask learners to talk about any cooking they have done or seen. You could show a video of a cake being made,
batter being heated in a pan or bread rising in an oven. Ask them to describe the food used and what happened
to it. Ask ‘was any food heated?’, ‘did the food change when it was heated?’

Scientific enquiry
Ask learners to use their results to make comparisons between the foods and to try and identify patterns in
them. Encourage them to review and explain what happened.
You could extend this activity by asking learners to try holding the foods for longer. Do they notice any
difference in what happens? This activity may be more suitable for higher achieving learners.

Activity (25 minutes)

Make sure you have some examples of foods that will change in response to body heat and some that will not.
Some foods, for example rice, will not change at this low temperature. This point can be discussed because
many learners will have seen rice and other foods cooked at higher temperatures in boiling water.

Assessment (15 minutes)

Ask learners to sort pictures of different foods into groups, those that change when you hold them and those
that do not. For some learners a third group ‘foods that change when heated’ could be used.
Can learners describe the way some everyday foods change when they are heated or cooled? Ask them to talk
about times they have seen food change in the kitchen, for example a raw egg fried in a pan or boiled in water.
How does the egg change?
 Exercise and sleep (Grade 3)
Learning Objectives
• Explore and research exercise and the
Scientific Enquiry Focus
adequate, varied diet needed to keep healthy
Making detailed
obervations • Collect evidence in a variety of contexts to
answer questions or test ideas
Heart.
• Observe and compare objects, living things
How fast? and events
Breathing.
Skin, cool How fast? Skin, cool
or warm or warm
1 2 3 You will need:
Lots of space
Heart.
How fast?
A stopwatch

What happens when

Breathing. we exercise?
How fast?
Look at the pictures
to see what to do.
Starting the lesson (10 minutes)
Ask learners what types of exercise they enjoy. Remind them that exercise can be activities like dancing, walking
or playground games involving movement as well as sport. Ask learners to discuss in pairs why exercise is good
for you. Then choose learners to report back on what their partner said. Explain that exercise keeps us healthy
because our muscles get stronger the more we use them. Explain that their heart is a muscle about the size of
their hand. Ask them to squeeze and relax one hand repeatedly. Explain that this is what the heart does when it
pumps blood. Their hands will get tired fairly quickly. Explain that our hearts must never rest so they need to be
strong. Exercise helps keep out hearts strong.

Scientific enquiry
To encourage good observations, put learners into pairs and ask them to take turns in observing each other. Ask
learners to think about how fast they are breathing, how fast their heart is beating and how their skin feels before
they do any exercise. Learners may be able to predict some of the results, but they may be less aware of others,
such as how their skin feels, and sweating.
After they have exercised, they should check how fast they are breathing, how fast their heart is beating, and
how their skin feels. Higher achieving learners could work in pairs with a timer to investigate the effects of
exercising for shorter or longer periods of time.

Activity (20 minutes)

Lots of space is required for this activity. Learners will need to exercise for at least two minutes.

Assessment (20 minutes)

After the activity, ask learners to list or draw diagrams comparing their heart, breathing and skin before and
after exercise. Encourage learners to record as many changes as they can. For example, breathing is faster but
also deeper and sometimes louder after exercise. Skin gets warmer but also sometimes changes colour and
becomes sweaty after exercise.
Learners could peer assess by counting the number of changes recorded in a partners work.
Higher achieving learners may be able to explain why some of these changes happen.
A habitat for snails (Grade 4)
Learning Objectives
• Investigate how different animals are found in
Scientific Enquiry Focus
different habitats and are suited to the
Planning a fair test
environment in which they are found
• Design a fair test and plan how to collect
sufficient evidence
• Identify simple trends and patterns in results
and suggest explanations for these

You will need:

A tray
Leaves
Dry stones
Sand
Small sticks
Three snails

Starting the lesson (15 minutes)

Begin by allowing learners to observe a snail. A squirt of water will encourage a snail to move around. Can the
learners observe the snail’s eyes, feelers, skin, foot, shell and tail? Ask learners to talk about places where they
have seen snails outside.

Scientific Enquiry
Learners should decide what they need to keep the same to make this test fair. Each habitat area should be the
same size and the same distance from the centre of the tray. Learners could note where the snail is every minute,
or every two minutes, and then record the results. This could be presented in a table or on a bar chart showing
the habitats available on the x-axis and the number of times the snails are observed in each place on the y-axis.
If snails tend to spend more time in one area, this will be a trend in the results.

Activity (15 minutes set up, 15 minutes observation)

The test will need to be repeated with several animals. They do not always initially make what we would call the ‘right’
choice. Ask learners about this. Is it because of limited vision, or because the animals like to search for food? Is there
another reason? Design a choice tray like the one in the picture. Plan how you will test some snails to see where they like
to be. How will you make the test fair? Think about each variable such as the colour of the tray, the light, the moisture
and the surface of the tray. Do snails like dry places or damp places? Make a prediction.
Look for any pattern or trend in the results. Repeat the tests to get more useful results. Present your results as a bar chart.
This activity could be done with other invertebrates such as woodlice or beetles if snails are not available

Assessment (10 minutes)

Ask learners to record their predictions, results and how they made the test fair. Ask learners to explain why they
think the snails liked the preferred habitat. During the activity assess learners by asking individuals to explain
how their test is fair and how they are making and recording their observations.
 Loud and soft sounds (Grade 4)
Learning Objectives
• Investigate how sounds can be loud or soft
Scientific Enquiry Focus
• Make relevant observations and comparisons
Making comparisons

1 You will need:

A long cardboard tube
Hold the clock
A source of sound
next to my ear so that I
can listen to the tick

2 Can you hear

the clock now? 3

Can you hear the clock

now? Is it lounder or
softer than before?
Starting the lesson (15 minutes)
Start by reminding learners that sound travels by making the air vibrate. Ask learners to spread out across the
classroom. Choose a learner to say their own name clearly and ask others to put up their hands if they can hear
it. Explain that even those standing behind the speaker can hear because the sound vibration spreads out in all
directions. Very quietly tell learners to put their hands on their heads. Discuss who could hear the instruction and
explain that some learners could not hear because sound gets softer as it travels away from the source.

Scientific enquiry
Encourage learners to close their eyes when listening to the sound. Many learners find it easier to concentrate
on what they can hear with closed eyes. Ask learners to describe how loud or soft the sound is in each case. If
necessary some learners can be supported by allowing them to use a very simple comparison scale for their
observations, e.g. very soft - soft - loud. Others can use a more detailed comparison scale e.g. silent - very soft -
soft - quite loud - very loud - too loud.

Activity (25 minutes)

Look at the pictures. Copy what the children in the pictures are doing. This activity can be done with rolled up
newspaper instead of cardboard tube.

Assessment (included in activity)

Ask learners to record their predictions and results. Some learners may be able to explain why the sound was
louder through the tube. During the activity, assess learners by asking individuals to describe the comparisons
they are making.
Why evaporation is useful (Grade 4)
Learning Objectives
• Know that evaporation occurs when a liquid
Scientific Enquiry Focus
turns into a gas
Identifying factors
• Identify factors that need to be taken into
account in different contexts

Get cool faster

Breathe onto the back of your hand. Does your breath
feel warm or cool?

Blow onto the back of your hand. Does it feel warmer or

cooler than your breath?

Now lick the back of your hand and then blow on it.
Blow gently at first and then harder. What do you feel?

Suggest a reason for your observation.

Starting the lesson (10 minutes)

Ask learners to talk in small groups about what happens to our bodies when they get warm. Then ask learners to
describe sweating and to say why they think we sweat.
Explain that the evaporation of sweat cools the body. As the temperature rises, your body begins to produce
sweat. As the sweat evaporates, it carries with it some of the heat from your body, causing your body to cool down.
Then ask learners to do Activity 3.2 to identify that air movement (or wind) is a factor that affects evaporation.

Scientific enquiry
Describe what you are going to ask learners to do in the activity and ask them to make predictions about
how it will feel. At the end of the activity, agree with the class that it felt colder when blowing on a wet hand.
Ask learners to note whether their predictions were correct.
To identify wind as a factor that affects evaporation, start by reminding learners that when they breathed onto
their hands at the start of the activity it felt warm. Then ask ‘how can warm breath make our hands feel cold?’, if
learners find it hard to identify that it is evaporation that is making their hand feel cooler, ask ‘what happens to
the liquid on your hand? Is it still there? Where has it gone?’ Encourage learners to explain that their hands feel
cooler because their breath has made the liquid evaporate. Explain that moving air speeds up evaporation, so
the harder they blow, the faster the evaporation and the cooler their hand will feel.

Activity (10 minutes)

Your breath feels warm. Blowing on your hand feels cooler than your breath. Licking and blowing on your hand
feels cooler than just blowing. The reason for this is that any water on your hand uses heat energy from your
body to evaporate. Blowing makes the water evaporate faster so that your hand feels cooler.
Weather forecasters sometimes refer to this effect as the wind chill factor.

Assessment (20 minutes)

Can learners explain how wind affects evaporation? Ask learners to explain why some people hang their
washing outside to dry or how blowing on wet nail varnish makes it dry faster. Ask learners to discuss in pairs or
small groups then write a short explanation or draw a labeled diagram.
How does grain size affect dissolving? (Grade 4)

Learning Objectives
• Explore how some solids dissolve in water to
Scientific Enquiry Focus
form solutions and, although the solid cannot
Planning an investigation
be seen, the substance is still present
• Choose what evidence to collect to investigate
a question, ensuring that the evidence
is sufficient

Get cool faster

Do large grains dissolve faster than small grains? Write
down a prediction.
Plan and conduct an investigation to find out.
Make a list of all the materials and equipment you need.
Identify the factors you are going to change.
List all the factors you are going to keep the same.
Write down a method that you can follow to carry out a
fair test.
Record your results in a table.
Draw a bar chart of your results.
Starting the lesson (10 minutes)
Ask learners to think about adding sugar to familiar hot drinks such as tea. Can learners suggest factors that
affect the rate of dissolving? Discuss how a warmer temperature and stirring can speed up dissolving, then ask
what learners think about the size of the grains. Ask ‘will a sugar lump dissolve faster or slower than a crushed
sugar lump?’ Explain that they are going to plan an investigation to find out.

Scientific enquiry
Learners make a written plan for their group by deciding what they need to keep the same to make this test
fair. The amount of water and salt, the temperature of the water and the amount of stirring all need to be the
same for both grain sizes. The containers used should be identical and it is helpful if they are transparent so the
dissolving salt can be easily observed. Ask learners to plan what they will measure and whether they will need to
repeat the measurements.

Activity (50 minutes)

Each group will need: water, salt or sugar crystals of different sizes, glass jars, teaspoon, measuring cylinder and
a stopwatch or watch with second hand. If no measuring cylinders or beakers are available, then the amount
of water used can be kept the same by using two identical containers filled to the same level. Salt and sugar
crystals can be crushed with a spoon to make smaller grains. Suggest that learners stir the solution to speed up
the dissolving of the solute.

Assessment (included in activity)

During the investigation, observe each group’s written plan. Check they have planned to control the correct
variables. Compare the plan with what the learners are doing. Have they remembered to follow the plan? Have
they improved their investigation since writing the plan?