Science is a fascinating subject to learn as it arouses children’s curiosity about nature and things that happen in our everyday life. Science helps children to understand better about themselves and the world around them.

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At Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, we are very excited to be offering Science as a specialist subject. All students from Pre-Primary to Year 6 attend specialist lessons in the Science Lab, and as far as we know, there is no better way to teach Science.

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Science is taught using web based technologies and hands on approach. Our students are engaged by a variety of exciting activities gathered from around the world, mostly using simple materials and equipment. This allows all our students to investigate the different sciences and achieve outcomes at a high level.

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At Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, we recognise that skills and attitudes in science are acquired at an early age. We aim to provide our students with the opportunity to develop their skills of investigation, understanding and inquiry, through observation and experimentation, in a stimulating classroom environment.

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"Children are born curious about the world around them. We need to nurture and harness that curiosity from the early years of school.  Taught well, Science engages students and can act as a vehicle for literacy, numeracy and critical thinking. Primary science lays the foundations for scientifically literate children who are able to grow into secondary school science and are more likely to make career choices that embrace science."

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- Bronwyn Mart – Winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools

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Australian Curriculum - SCIENCE

Rationale  Science provides an empirical way of answering interesting and important questions about the biological, physical and technological world. The knowledge it produces has proved to be a reliable basis for action in our personal, social and economic lives. Science is a dynamic, collaborative and creative human endeavour arising from our desire to make sense of our world through exploring the unknown, investigating universal mysteries, making predictions and solving problems. Science aims to understand a large number of observations in terms of a much smaller number of broad principles. Science knowledge is contestable and is revised, refined and extended as new evidence arises.

 

The Australian Curriculum: Science provides opportunities for students to develop an understanding of important science concepts and processes, the practices used to develop scientific knowledge, of science’s contribution to our culture and society, and its applications in our lives. The curriculum supports students to develop the scientific knowledge, understandings and skills to make informed decisions about local, national and global issues and to participate, if they so wish, in science-related careers.

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In addition to its practical applications, learning science is a valuable pursuit in its own right. Students can experience the joy of scientific discovery and nurture their natural curiosity about the world around them. In doing this, they develop critical and creative thinking skills and challenge themselves to identify questions and draw evidence-based conclusions using scientific methods. The wider benefits of this “scientific literacy” are well established, including giving students the capability to investigate the natural world and changes made to it through human activity.

 

The science curriculum promotes six overarching ideas that highlight certain common approaches to a scientific view of the world and which can be applied to many of the areas of science understanding. These overarching ideas are patterns, order and organisation; form and function; stability and change; systems; scale and measurement; and matter and energy.

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Aims

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The Australian Curriculum: Science aims to ensure that students develop:'

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• an interest in science as a means of expanding their curiosity and willingness to explore,

• ask questions about and speculate on the changing world in which they live

• an understanding of the vision that science provides of the nature of living things, of the Earth and its place in the cosmos, and of the physical and chemical processes that explain the behaviour of all material things an understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and the ability to use a range of scientific inquiry methods, including questioning; planning and conducting experiments and investigations based on ethical principles; collecting and analysing data; evaluating results; and drawing critical, evidence-based conclusions

• an ability to communicate scientific understanding and findings to a range of audiences, to justify ideas on the basis of evidence, and to evaluate and debate scientific arguments and claims

• an ability to solve problems and make informed, evidence-based decisions about current and future applications of science while taking into account ethical and social implications of decisions

• an understanding of historical and cultural contributions to science as well as contemporary science issues and activities and an understanding of the diversity of careers related to science

• a solid foundation of knowledge of the biological, chemical, physical, Earth and space sciences, including being able to select and integrate the scientific knowledge and methods needed to explain and predict phenomena, to apply that understanding to new situations and events, and to appreciate the dynamic nature of science knowledge.