Students complete this drag and drop activity on the mneumonic “Cows Moo Softly”.

The Science Teachers’ Association of New South Wales (STANSW) K-6 Network- information about the annual science conference CONASTA- resources to support planning investigations, especially with regard to participation in the Young Scientist Competition. Also follow links to information about Doing a Scientific Investigation.

Wicked Science has a simple and clear worksheet to support student planning of a scientific investigation.

Primary resources.co.uk has numerous links to resources for scientific investigations. It includes some PowerPoint slides, worksheets, lists of success criteria and examples of experiments.

The Australian Academy of Science ‘Primary Investigations’ and ‘Primary Connections’ are resources that can be purchased. ‘Primary Connections’ has links to curriculum resources containing unit overviews that provide ideas for science lessons available free on their web site.

The Learning Federation (TLF) has a unit on Working Scientifically. Students plan and simulate fair tests on peas, lettuce and tomatoes. This can be accessed from the right hand menu on the TaLe site home page. (DET only)

TaLe also has a unit written for high schools called Student Research Project. Some capable primary school students may directly use the resources and proformas included here for the planning phases of a scientific investigation. Teachers might like to use it, even if it is too advanced for their students, to clarify their own understanding about variables, selecting topics, determining an hypothesis and planning an investigation. Under the heading ‘collecting’ there are useful sections called ‘Your design’, ‘Design’ and ‘Checklist’.

Chemical safety checks are important. You need to follow the guidelines from your sector of education. Here is a link to the DET Chemical Safety guidelines.

Energy Australia and DET has produced a resource for high schools. This link provides information for students about choosing a topic for scientific investigation. It also includes case studies and ideas for research. It is worth noting that many of the messages are the same as for primary students, but a much more sophisticated investigation is expected at high school level. (DET only)

Solar Schools has a list of resources for primary teachers listed under KLAs. Some activities such as monitoring the weather will give students practice in conducting investigations. Other activities, such as impact of light on the use of solar powered calculators could provide inspiration for developing a fair test. The instructions for making a wind winch could provide a device that could be used to for a scientific investigation. This resource provides simple worksheets.

Subject-specific investigations and activities for students and lesson plans for teachers are available on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology web site.