Upper Primary Years 4-7 SOSE and Science

Unit 1 Flow Chart
Unit 1 Matrix

Unit 1: Wet Tropics – a Unique, Complex Environment

Key understandings
North Queensland’s wet tropical forests have been World heritage listed in recognition of their outstanding global significance. A tropical rainforest is a unique ecosystem unlike any other on the Earth.

Focus questions
• What is a tropical rainforest?
• Why does rainforest grow where it does?
• How do rainforests work?

Targeted Key Learning Areas
• Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE)
• Science

Targeted New Basics organisers and referents

Life pathways and Social Futures
• Collaborating with peers and others

Multiliteracies and communications media
• Blending traditional and new communications media
• Mastering literacy and numeracy

Active Citizenship
• Operating within local and global communities

Environments and Technologies
• Developing a scientific understanding of the world
• Building and sustaining environments

Targeted Repertoires of Practice
• Collecting, analysing and organising information
• Communicating ideas and information
• Comprehending the concept of ecological interrelatedness
• Comprehending the concept of environmental responsibility
• Setting out information in a cohesive report
• Planning and organising activities
• Working with others in teams
• Using computer software appropriately (Word, Publisher)

Core learning outcomes
This unit focuses on the following core learning outcomes from the Years 1-10 Syllabuses.

Science
Strand: Science and Society
Key Concept: Historical and cultural factors influence the nature and direction of science which, in turn, affects the development of society.
S&S 3.1 Students relate some of the ways that people of various historical and cultural backgrounds construct and communicate their understandings of the same natural phenomena.
Key Concept: Discussions about the ways that science is applied have short and long term implications for the environment, communities and individuals.
S&S 3.3 Students make predictions about the immediate impact of some applications of science on their own community and environment and consider possible pollution and public health effects.
S&S 4.3 Students present analyses of the short and long term effects of some of the ways in which science is used.
Strand: Earth and beyond
Key Concept: Events on earth, in the solar system and in the universe occur on different scales of time and space.
E&B 3.2 Students discuss regular and irregular events in time and space that occur on the Earth and in the sky.
E&B 4.2 Students collect information which illustrate that changes on Earth and in the solar system occur in different scales of time and space.
Key Concept: Living things use the resources of the earth, solar system and the universe to meet their needs.
E&B 3.3 Students collect information which describes ways in which living things use the Earth and the sun’s resources.
Strand: Life and Living
Key concept: The characteristics of an organism and its functioning are interrelated.
L&L 3.1 Students draw conclusions about the relationship between features of living things and the environments in which they live.
L&L 4.1 Students examine the internal and external structure of living things and account for observed similarities and differences in terms of adaptation.
Key Concept: Evolutionary processes have given rise to a diversity of living things which can be grouped according to their characteristics.
L&L 3.2 Students present information which illustrates stages in different types of life cycles (including metamorphosis) of familiar living things.
L&L 4.2 Students identify and analyse similarities and differences in the ways different living things reproduce.

Studies of Society and Environment ( SOSE)
Strand: Time, Continuity and Change
Key Concept: Changes and continuities
TCC 3.2 Students create sequences and timelines about specific Australian changes and continuities.
Key Concept: Causes and effects
TCC 3.4 Students organise information about causes and effects of specific historical events.