Year/Audience
Primary (Ages 8-12)
Curriculum Links
Science (Primary level)
Themes and Topics
- Sound, air pressure, mixtures, reactions, energy, wavelengths, density, matter, force, vacuum
Backyard Science, DVD
The Backyard Science: Primary Teaching Resource (DVD-ROM), a high-quality interactive teaching and learning resource for non-specialist science educators, is based on the acclaimed Backyard Science television series (Beyond Distribution, Australia). This innovative multimedia resource promotes the development of scientific literacy for children (Years 4-7) through 40 teaching strategies for classroom experiments, 80 digitised video clips, detailed science content notes, student worksheets, interactive games, Kahootz 3 animations and links to additional web resources.
The digitised video clips show experiments conducted ‘by kids for kids’ based on scientific discovery, investigation, problem solving and curiosity about our world. The teaching ideas and activities are designed to link with the Primary Connections resource and the 5E’s teaching framework: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate.
Backyard Science: Primary Teaching Resource (DVD-ROM) focuses its science activities on four units:
- Unit 1: The Science of Making Music
- Unit 2: Wonderful Air
- Unit 3: Investigating Mixtures
- Unit 4: What a reaction!
Through these activities children are encouraged to experiment in safety with equipment and materials found around the home. Current research suggests that ‘hands-on’, practical science programs, like Backyard Science: Primary Teaching Resource (DVD-ROM), enable students to understand and remember more easily the evidence and information being presented.
Unit 1: The Science of Making Music
To investigate what causes sound and the difference in the sounds of musical instruments. Also, students are invited to incorporate their research and investigations into inventing a new instrument (and perhaps perform). By observing how musical instruments have changing frequencies, wavelengths and amplitudes, students are asked to design and construct an effective instrument.
Unit 2: Wonderful Air
To investigate to properties and principles of air pressure. Students are invited to research and investigate the causes and effects of changing air pressure. They experiment to test hypothesises and draw conclusions and evaluations. By learning in a local context they can apply their knowledge and experience to more global applications.
Unit 3: Investigating Mixtures
To investigate the properties of a mixture. Students test mixtures to understand what happens when they combine and how dependent they are on the type and quantity of substances. They also observe differences in the properties of a mixture and its components and investigate various separation techniques and relate these to the properties of the mixture’s components. By applying these techniques to separate a given mixture, they gain knowledge that they can apply in various contexts.
Unit 4: What a reaction!
To investigate different changes that materials undergo when chemical reactions occur. Students conduct experiments with different substances to observe the changes that occur. They research the properties of solutions and mixtures, hypothesise what will happen, observe and record changes to explain how, what and why the reaction has occurred.
