Educational

This resource package investigates the relationship between micro-organisms and food and medicine.

Students carry out investigations to understand how yeast assists in bread growth and also explore the conditions that are conducive to the growth of mould on bread.

Students also explore how the discovery of the microscope assisted in the scientific understanding of micro-organisms and how this contributed to the development of medicines such as penicillin.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S6U01 (Year 6)

This unit of work investigates the life cycle of plants.

In this resource, students investigate the processes of pollination and germination, the stages of a plant’s life cycle, and the environmental conditions that plants need for growth.

This video examines the relative sizes of atoms, neutrons, protons and electrons.

The resource is a TED Ed video (5:27 min) which could be used as an introduction to a unit, or to consolidate understanding on subatomic particles.

It also examines the density of an atomic nucleus in terms of six million cars squashed into a 1-metre square box.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S7U05 (Year 7), AC9S8U06 (Year 8), AC9S9U06 (Year 9)

This video looks at non-Newtonian fluids.

This TED Ed video (4:28) would be useful in extending a student's understanding of the particle model of solids, liquids and gases.

The clip examines how the tomato particles behave when the bottle is shaken quickly (to spurt out suddenly) or when long slow motions are used over time.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S7U05 (Year 7), AC9S7U06 (Year 7)

This video looks at non-reversible changes to matter.

The resource is a TED Ed video (4:29) that examines the many reactions that occur in the simple act of making cookies.

The video covers topics such as emulsions, caramelisation, how egg protein changes when cooked, and even salmonella.

Whilst watching, students could identify the different physical and chemical reactions that occur when baking cookies.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S6U04 (Year 6), AC9S8U07 (Year 8)

This video deals with how the immune system fights diseases.

This TED Ed video (3:58min) describes the function of cellular organelles and how they work together to allow a cell to fight a virus.

Aimed at slightly older students, this material is within the range of advanced Year 8 students (it mentions mRNA and enzymes very briefly), or it could be used as a summary of organelle functions.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S8U01 (Year 8), AC9S8U02 (Year 8)

This online resource explores Mendelian genetics.

The resource gives details for a hands-on activity where Mendelian genetics are used to analyse the results of genetic crosses between stickleback fish with different traits.

Students use photos of actual research specimens (the F1 and F2 cards) to obtain their data; they then analyse the data they collected along with additional data from the scientific literature.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S10U01 (Year 10)

This online resource looks at an example of natural selection in humans.

The two linked resources concerning sickle-cell anaemia are suitable for use with Year 10 students.

This online resource details a student activity involving natural selection.

The resource is an academic paper that details how two sets of playing cards and some easily made props can be used to demonstrate how inheritance and natural selection through environmental changes can affect the evolution of a species.

The paper gives details of the hands-on activity the students use as well as showing examples of the statistics that can be used to demonstrate the effect.

The paper also acts as limited background notes for the topic.

This online resource details a scientific investigation into brine shrimp.

The resource details an activity where students investigate sexual selection in brine shrimp.

The activity guides them through the process of the Scientific Method where they make observations, generate hypotheses to test, and plan and conduct an investigation to test their hypotheses.

Australian Curriculum v9 Codes: AC9S10U02 (Year 10)