Science, Grade 5

Unit 1: Life Science: Meeting Basic Needs and Maintaining a Healthy Body

How the digestive, excretory, respiratory, circulatory, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems work, and the technologies and people connected to body science and health.

• Questions about how the body works
• How saliva starts digestion
• Technologies for handling waste

• Testable questions about breathing and heartbeat
• Investigating breathing and heartbeat
• Scientific processes used

• Systems working together for movement
• Canadians in body science
• Exploring response time
• Medical technologies for movement

Unit 2: Physical Science: Properties and Changes in Materials

Distinguishing materials by their properties, physical and chemical changes, states of matter, and the sources and masses of materials in objects.

• Properties that distinguish materials
• Physical changes
• Chemical changes
• Reversible and non-reversible chemical changes
• Classifying states of matter
• Reversible and non-reversible physical changes
• Distinguishing materials by chemical properties
• Displaying chemical test results

• Mass of the whole and its parts
• Manufactured materials that improve living
• Tracing materials to their sources

Unit 3: Physical Science: Forces and Simple Machines

Forces and their effects, contact and non-contact forces, friction, and simple machines including levers, pulleys, and systems of machines.

• How forces act
• Contact and non-contact forces
• Changing the amount of force

• Planning a friction investigation
• Comparing friction on surfaces
• Describing force in words and numbers
• Estimating the force to move a load
• Rollers, wheels, and axles
• Products that change friction

• Using simple machines
• Comparing manual and machine effort
• The effort problem
• Parts of a lever
• Designing an efficient lever
• Pulleys and pulley systems
• Designing a system of machines
• How simple machines improved living
• Sharing and improving machine designs
• Machines developed over time

Unit 4: Earth and Space Science: Weather

Measuring and describing weather, the Sun's energy reaching Earth, properties and movement of air and water, the water cycle, predicting weather, and environmental issues.

• Weather folklore
• Weather measuring instruments
• Weather terms and instruments
• Recording weather observations
• Classifying clouds
• Features of weather systems
• Estimating weather measurements
• Weather innovations across cultures

• The Sun's energy and weather
• Measuring how light heats materials
• Properties of air
• When air or water masses meet
• Patterns in air movement
• The water cycle

• Displaying and explaining weather data
• How the community predicts weather
• Uses of weather forecasts
• Predicting local weather patterns
• Weather phenomena being studied
• Effects of technology on weather
• Environmental issues and change