Balnarring Primary School offers a specialist Science Program to all students from Foundation to Year 6.
Learning through science involves asking questions, thinking about the world, weighing up the evidence and putting forward your best guess. The school’s unique wetland environment on its doorstep provides a rich opportunity for learning about the local species of animals and plants. Students are challenged to be curious, to discover, to achieve and enjoy.
Foundation students learn how important it is to use their senses of hearing, touching, smelling, tasting and seeing. They learn about the weather and its effect on everyday living. They learn to identify some of 84 species of birds that visit our wetlands and to handle blue tongue lizards and, Squirt, the long neck turtle.
Years 1 and 2 students investigate the physical changes that take place to everyday objects during the composting process. They investigate the way living things change and grow and have offspring similar to themselves. Students observe and predict weather in their environment. They make inquiries into the way simple toys move and work.
Years 3 and 4 students offer ideas on how things work. They learn to conduct experimental investigations and solve problems. They gain understandings about the effects of weathering and erosion on the surface of the Earth, the life cycles of various animals, the uses of energy, the rotation of the Earth and the properties of solids, liquids and gases.
Senior students study numerous topics that include marine habitats, chemical reactions, electricity, renewable energies, the properties of light, the solar system and the complexities of our wetland ecosystem. They devise and conduct experiments with growing independence. In these later years, students explain, reflect and report on their ideas and their learning.
Students from Years 3 to 6 may participate in the Balnarring Environmental Action Team (B.E.A.T). The team is led by a senior student and meets weekly with two teachers during a lunch hour. B.E.A.T is committed to educating and supporting the school community in making excellent choices about how to act sustainably in its water and energy usage and in its waste management program.
B.E.A.T is also committed to learning more about the wetlands, sharing this information with others and working hard to protect its unique environment.