Maninder Kaur

Welcome to 'Engaging with the new Science 7–10 Syllabus'.

Today we will be exploring the key changes in the new syllabus, so you can develop a plan to engage and enact the syllabus at your school.

I would like to acknowledge the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. I'm joining you from the lands of Darug people and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I would also like to extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people watching this video.

The learning intentions of today's session are: to find out about what is new and different in the science syllabus. Understand how these changes will affect the way you teach and utilise the planning tools to focus on your priorities as you prepare for the curriculum implementation at your school.

After undertaking these professional learning sessions, you will be able to identify the changes in the syllabus and use the tools like visual planning boards such as kanban board to organise and schedule the work required for the implementation of the new syllabus at your school.

Let's look at the key features of the new Science 7–10 Syllabus. The NESA requirement indicates that course should be 400 hours long. However, all department schools must program 500 hours of instruction time for Science 7–10 as required under the Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting policy. For example, in Year 7, students can cover 'Observing the universe', 'forces', 'cells and classification' and 'solutions and mixtures' focus area. Thus, there are 16 content focus areas altogether in Years 7–10.

In addition to that, students will also engage in at least one depth study activity.

In the new science syllabus, NESA has clarified the definition of terms, such as scientific investigations, practicals and secondary source investigations.

Scientific investigation is a broader term and refers to any activities that involve inquiry, requiring the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. These can be practical or secondary-sourced investigations. Practical investigations allow students to plan and conduct investigations to collect, process and analyse data. On the other hand, in the secondary-source investigations, students work with authentic, reliable, and valid data from secondary sources.

In department schools, students in Years 7–10 are expected to spend approximately 250 hours of instruction time in scientific investigations. Similar to Stage 6 science courses, students undertaking depth studies in Science 7–10 are expected to engage in learning activities that are related to the interest in a scientific topic and deepen their understanding of the scientific concepts addressed in the depth study activities.

It is mandatory that students undertake at least one depth study in each year in Years 7–10. The programming requirements for depth studies are shown in this slide. These are: 5 hours of class time is recommended each year, at least one practical depth study per stage, and at least 2 working scientifically processes should be covered in that. The working scientifically skills have been reworked in the new Science 7–10 Syllabus.

As you would have noted, a new working scientifically skill, 'observing' has been added to the skills and there are also changes to the descriptions of the other working scientifically skills compared to the current 7–10 Science Syllabus. The 'communicating' skill now has a strong emphasis on creating written text, both in Stage 4 as well as in Stage 5.

The table on this slide summarises some activities described in the syllabus, where students can develop their skills in creating written text. For example, in Year 8, in the living systems focus area, students can prepare a descriptive report to explain how energy pyramids show the amount of energy or matter at each trophic level. There are other examples below.

One important feature of the new Science 7–10 Syllabus is the use of learning progressions to deepen students' understanding of scientific concepts.

The theoretical framework for developing learning progressions is shown in this slide. The term 'progression' indicates that as students move from one topic to the next within a disciplinary area, they will broaden and deepen their understanding of scientific concepts. Your role as a teacher is to provide learning experiences that enable such progressions. To do this, teachers should link related ideas in different lessons across different years, so that students perceive a continuum of ideas and focus on conceptual understanding that is anchored to the big ideas of science. It is important to note that learning progressions are developed by teachers. Thus, there are no fixed learning progressions that can be universally applied. To do that, you must rely on your understanding of the topic, your students' academic abilities and prior learning experiences. Some examples of learning progressions in Science 7–10 will be illustrated in the following slides.

[slide shows the learning progressions for biology content. It displays different outcomes from Year 7 to Year 10. The Year 7 outcomes include: describe the functions of the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus containing DNA, mitochondria and chloroplasts, describe the role of specialised cells in multicellular organisms and explain why they are needed, represent the arrangement of specialised cells in tissues and organs and examine the relationship between the structure and function for a range of specialised cells. The Year 8 outcome is: describe how the structures of organ systems, and the specialised cells within these systems, enable them to carry out their functions. The Year 9 outcomes include: compare and contrast the responses of the nervous and endocrine systems and outline how vaccination stimulates the body to produce antibodies to fight infection. The Year 10 outcomes have: observe and model the arrangement of genetic information in an organism to define and compare the terms DNA, gene, chromosome and genome and outline how genetic information is passed on to offspring by sexual and asexual reproduction. Arrows show how outcomes from each year connect and build upon the knowledge of outcomes in other years.]

This slide shows an example of a possible learning progression that addresses some biology concepts in the Science 7–10 Syllabus. Note that this progression is only illustrative.

The concepts in the Year 7, 'cells and classification' content focus area can be linked to concepts in the Year 8 'living systems', Year 9 'disease', and Year 10 'genetics and evolutionary change' content focus areas.

In this slide, the arrows depict possible connections between various scientific concepts in those content focus areas. For example, examine learning progression one, it shows how the concept of cellular specialisation in tissues and organs covered in Year 7 is linked to the concept of functional organisation in organ systems in Year 8. Thus, the Year 7 teachers can anticipate future learning by laying the necessary groundwork in the science lessons on cellular specialisation.

The detailed speaker notes are provided in the facilitator's guide for your reference. The video will be paused for a minute. Use this time to identify other learning progressions shown in this slide.

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Similar to the previous slide, this slide shows an example of a possible learning progression that addresses some chemistry concepts in the Science 7–10 Syllabus. The concepts in the Year 7 'solutions and mixtures' content focus area are linked to the concepts in the Year 8 'periodic table and atomic structure', Year 9 'change' and Year 10 'reaction' content focus areas.

In this slide, the arrows depict possible connections between various scientific concepts in those content focus areas. Also indicating that these progressions are not always linear. For example, the concept of 'classification of matter into elements, compounds, and mixtures' covered in Year 7 is linked to the 'structure of atom and its related properties' in Year 8 to 'electronic configuration and valency' in Year 9 and 'writing chemical formulae and balanced chemical equations' in Year 10. The Year 7 teachers may introduce the big idea, 'all matter in the universe is made up of very small particles' and use this as an anchor to develop understanding of chemistry concepts from Stage 4–5. The detailed speaker notes are provided in the facilitator's guide for your reference.

The video will be paused for a minute. Use this time to identify other learning progressions shown in this slide.

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This slide shows learning progressions in some working scientifically skills. Going from Stage 4–5, we notice the use of more complex verbs. For example, in the 'observing' skill, students progress from using scientific tools and instruments to selecting and using tools and instruments to make accurate observations. It also increases in complexity, for example, in 'questioning and predicting' skill, students progress from identifying questions and making predictions in Stage 4 to developing questions and hypothesis for scientific investigations in Stage 5.

Learning progressions in other skills such as conducting investigations and communicating are also shown in this slide. This slide summarises the distribution of the different working scientifically skills across the various content focus areas in Stages 4–5. Looking at each row in turn, we notice that each skill is addressed in multiple content focus areas. For example, working scientifically skill observing is addressed in observing the universe, cells and classification and change in Stage 4, it is also addressed in energy and reactions in Stage 5. This provides teachers with opportunities to address each skill in different and multiple contexts and develop and deepen students' abilities in those skills over time, allow students to demonstrate their understanding and ability to apply their learning in different situations.

We will explore how this distribution of the working scientifically skills may be used to develop effective learning activities for students.

It is now the time to undertake activity one in your workbook.

The video will be paused for 10 minutes while you're completing this activity. Please refer to the PowerPoint presentation for completing activities in Sessions 2 and 3.

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Please scan the QR code on the screen to provide feedback on the engaging with the new Science 7–10 Syllabus professional learning sessions after you have completed Sessions 2 and 3.

The QR code is also in your workbook.

Thank you for watching this video.

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