Australia · ACARA Content Descriptions
Year 5 Science
This course engages Year 5 students in deep inquiry across biological, physical, and earth sciences. Students investigate how living things adapt to survive, how light behaves in our world, and how the Earth changes over time through hands-on experimentation and scientific observation.
01Survival in the Wild
Students investigate how structural features and behavioral adaptations allow living things to survive in specific environments.
Exploring how physical body parts like beaks, fur, and claws help animals thrive in their habitats.
Investigating how plant structures like roots, leaves, and stems are adapted for survival in various biomes.
Analyzing how animals act and react to environmental changes to ensure their continued survival, focusing on migration and hibernation.
Exploring how nocturnal and diurnal animals use their senses and behaviors differently to survive in their respective activity periods.
Investigating how plants respond to stimuli like light, gravity, and touch to optimize their growth and survival.
Case studies of organisms that survive in the harshest desert and polar conditions on Earth.
Exploring the adaptations of life forms in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and volcanic ecosystems.
Understanding the flow of energy through ecosystems, identifying producers, consumers, and decomposers.
Students explore the complex relationships within ecosystems and investigate how changes to one component affect all others. This topic incorporates the ACARA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority, drawing on Indigenous ecological knowledge and connections to Country as evidence of deep, long-term environmental understanding.
Students investigate how human activity impacts Australian ecosystems and evaluate conservation strategies. This topic incorporates the ACARA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority, with a focus on cultural burning and Indigenous land management as evidence-based approaches to conservation and biodiversity protection.
02Illuminating the World
An exploration of light sources, how light travels, and how it interacts with different objects to create shadows and reflections.
Identifying various natural and artificial light sources and understanding their characteristics.
Investigating the rectilinear propagation of light through experiments with pinholes and lasers.
Exploring how light reflects off surfaces, particularly mirrors, and the concept of angles of incidence and reflection.
Investigating how shadows are formed and how their size and shape are influenced by light source and object position.
Classifying materials based on their interaction with light and how this affects visibility and shadow clarity.
Examining how light bends when moving through different mediums, such as air and water.
Investigating how white light is composed of different colors and can be separated using a prism.
Exploring how we perceive color and the principles of additive and subtractive color mixing.
Understanding how convex and concave lenses are used in optical instruments like magnifying glasses and telescopes.
Exploring various technologies that utilize light, from fiber optics to solar panels.
03Earth's Changing Surface
Students investigate the geological processes and human activities that shape and change the Earth's surface over time.
Identifying the different types of weathering (physical, chemical, biological) that break down rocks.
Exploring how water, wind, and ice transport weathered material across the landscape.
Understanding how eroded materials are deposited to create new landforms like deltas, dunes, and moraines.
Exploring the causes of earthquakes and their connection to the movement of Earth's tectonic plates.
Investigating the formation of volcanoes, types of eruptions, and their impact on landscapes.
Understanding the causes and effects of landslides, mudslides, and other forms of mass movement.
Assessing the impact of mining and other resource extraction activities on the Earth's surface and environment.
Investigating how farming practices, deforestation, and irrigation change the Earth's surface.
Exploring how the growth of cities and construction of infrastructure alter natural landscapes.
Students evaluate strategies to reduce and reverse the effects of human impact on Earth's surface, including soil erosion and land degradation. This topic incorporates the ACARA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority, exploring how traditional land management practices provide sustainable, evidence-based models for environmental restoration.
04Matter and Mixtures
An introduction to the properties of matter and how different substances can be combined and separated.
Observing and describing the distinct properties of solids, including shape, volume, and particle arrangement.
Investigating the characteristics of liquids, such as indefinite shape, fixed volume, and fluidity.
Exploring the properties of gases, including indefinite shape and volume, and compressibility.
Observing and explaining the processes of melting and freezing and the role of temperature.
Investigating the processes of evaporation and condensation and their applications in daily life.
Differentiating between pure substances and mixtures, and identifying homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures.
Investigating the process of dissolving, identifying solutes and solvents, and factors affecting solubility.
Distinguishing between physical changes (like mixing) and chemical changes (like reactions) in substances.
Applying techniques like filtration, decantation, and magnetism to separate heterogeneous mixtures.
Investigating methods such as evaporation, distillation, and chromatography to separate solutions and colloids.