Teaching should ensure that 'scientific enquiry' is taught through contexts taken from the sections on 'life processes and living things', 'materials and their properties' and 'physical processes'.
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Grouping and classifying materials
- Pupils should be taught:
a. to compare everyday materials and objects on the basis of their material properties, including hardness, strength, flexibility and magnetic behaviour, and to relate these properties to everyday uses of the materials
b. that some materials are better thermal insulators than others
c. that some materials are better electrical conductors than others
d. to describe and group rocks and soils on the basis of their characteristics, including appearance, texture and permeability
e. to recognise differences between solids, liquids and gases, in terms of ease of flow and maintenance of shape and volume
Changing materials
- Pupils should be taught:
a. to describe changes that occur when materials are mixed [for example, adding salt to water]
b. to describe changes that occur when materials [for example, water, clay, dough] are heated or cooled
c. that temperature is a measure of how hot or cold things are
d. about reversible changes, including dissolving, melting, boiling, condensing, freezing and evaporating
e. the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle
f. that non-reversible changes [for example, vinegar reacting with bicarbonate of soda, plaster of Paris with water] result in the formation of new materials that may be useful
g. that burning materials [for example, wood, wax, natural gas] results in the formation of new materials and that this change is not usually reversible
Separating mixtures of materials
- Pupils should be taught:
a. how to separate solid particles of different sizes by sieving [for example, those in soil]
b. that some solids [for example, salt, sugar] dissolve in water to give solutions but some [for example, sand, chalk] do not
c. how to separate insoluble solids from liquids by filtering
d. how to recover dissolved solids by evaporating the liquid from the solution
e. to use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated
Explanatory notes and cross-curriculum references
Note for 1e
Particle theory does not need to be taught.
Note for 2b - ICT opportunity
Pupils could use sensors to record temperature changes.
Note for 2e - ICT opportunity
Pupils could use CD-ROM or the internet to research water supplies in a range of localities.