By the end of Year 8, students:
- Compare physical and chemical changes and use the particle model to explain and predict the properties and behaviours of substances.
- Identify different forms of energy and describe how energy transfers and transformations cause change in simple systems.
- Compare processes of rock formation, including the timescales involved.
- Analyse the relationship between structure and function at cell, organ and body system levels.
- Examine the different science knowledge used in occupations.
- Explain how evidence has led to an improved understanding of a scientific idea and describe situations in which scientists collaborated to generate solutions to contemporary problems. They reflect on implications of these solutions for different groups in society.
- Students identify and construct questions and problems that they can investigate scientifically.
- They consider safety and ethics when planning investigations, including designing field or experimental methods.
- They identify variables to be changed, measured and controlled.
- Students construct representations of their data to reveal and analyse patterns and trends, and use these when justifying their conclusions.
- They explain how modifications to methods could improve the quality of their data and apply their own scientific knowledge and investigation findings to evaluate claims made by others.
- They use appropriate language and representations to communicate science ideas, methods and findings in a range of text types.