Science, Grade 4

Unit 1: Scientific Skills and Inquiry

The hands-on doing of science in Grade 4 - selecting tools to observe and measure, measuring area and more in standard units, making bar graphs with many-to-one scales, and building a device or system to solve a problem.

• Selecting the right tool
• Measuring mass, length, volume, area, and temperature

• Graphs with a scale
• Building a device or system

Unit 2: Habitats and Communities

Habitats and the needs they meet, adaptations, populations and communities, food chains and food webs, and how changes and conservation affect living things.

• Words for habitats and communities
• Living things depend on their habitat
• Parts of an animal habitat
• Adaptations for survival
• Traditional knowledge of adaptations
• Inventions that copy nature

• Local and regional habitats
• Measuring a plant population
• Populations interact in a community
• Energy in a food chain
• Building food chains and webs
• Building a model habitat

• Removing a population
• Changes to habitats
• How our actions conserve habitats
• Technology helps us study nature
• Traditional knowledge of populations

Unit 3: Light

Light as energy, sources of light, how light travels and behaves, transparent and opaque materials, shadows, and devices that use light.

• Words for light
• Forms of energy
• Energy in daily life
• White light is made of colours
• Making light or reflecting it
• Natural and artificial light sources

• Properties of light
• Materials that bend and focus light
• Light and heat
• Transparent, translucent, and opaque
• Choosing materials for light
• Predicting shadows

• Technology that extends our sight
• Building a light device
• Protecting eyes and sight
• Uses of light around us

Unit 4: Sound

Sound as energy from vibrations, pitch and loudness, how the ear hears, protecting hearing, how sound travels through materials, and sound technology.

• Words for sound
• Sound is energy
• Energy makes things happen
• Sorting sounds
• Sounds come from vibrations
• Making a musical instrument
• Changing pitch and loudness

• Properties of sound
• How the ear detects sound
• Sounds we can and cannot hear
• Protecting your hearing
• Harmful and hazardous sounds

• Sound through solids, liquids, and gases
• Materials that carry or muffle sound
• Using materials to control sound
• Devices that work with sound
• Sound inventions and society
• Sound in jobs and hobbies

Unit 5: Rocks, Minerals, and Erosion

Testing and classifying rocks and minerals, the three rock types, fossils, how rock becomes soil, and how wind, water, and ice shape the land.

• Words for rocks and minerals
• Sorting rocks and minerals
• Testing rocks and minerals
• Minerals and rocks are different
• Comparing rocks from different places

• Products from rocks and minerals
• Why properties decide uses
• The three types of rock

• How fossils form
• Fossils and Earth's history
• How rock becomes soil

• Controlling soil erosion
• Designing an erosion-control system
• Wind, water, and ice on the land
• Big changes to the landscape