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| Discovering life - All living things are organisms.
- There is a wide variety of organisms (this is diversity), including plants, animals, and fungi.
- Plants exist in many forms, including grasses, ferns, trees, and seaweeds; they can be flowering or cone-bearing, deciduous or evergreen. Algae such as seaweeds, share some similarities with plants.
- Common structures of flowering plants (including trees) include leaves, flowers, fruit, roots, seeds, trunk, branches, and stem.
- Ocean plants have different structures to land-based plants.
- Animals include diverse groups such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, insects, and mammals (including humans). Each group has distinct features.
- Fungi are living organisms that are different from plants and include mushrooms.
- Theophrastus (c.371–287 BCE) described plant forms and structures. His botanical texts were used for centuries as primary references.
| Life cycles - Animals, including humans, reproduce and grow into adults.
- Offspring often resemble their parents but are not exactly the same as them.
- Organisms eventually die.
- Different organisms have different life cycles (e.g. butterfly, frog, human, broad bean, kōwhai tree).
- Plants grow from seeds, mature, and reproduce.
- Flowers are primarily for reproduction.
- Flowers play an important role in the life cycle of flowering plants: pollination, seed formation, and seed dispersal.
- A seed contains stored nutrients and needs water to germinate.
- Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) observed and recorded insect metamorphosis using detailed illustrations. Her work bridged art and science and advanced entomology.
| How organisms meet their needs - In plants, each structure has a function (e.g. roots and stems help support the plant and transport water and nutrients).
- Plants gain nutrition by absorbing sunlight in their leaves to produce sugar (this is photosynthesis); they take up water and nutrients from the soil through their roots.
- Animals gain nutrition by digesting other organisms.
- Different types of animals have varied diets, with some eating plants (herbivores), some eating other animals (carnivores), and some eating a variety of foods (omnivores).
- Animals have body structures adapted for their diets (e.g. teeth, jaw size, snout/beak length, tongue shape).
- The teeth of carnivores and herbivores look different, related to their different functions.
- Alfred Brehm (1829–1884) recorded observations of animal diets and feeding behaviours. His writings popularised zoology and animal studies in Europe.
- Note: Photosynthesis as a process is beyond the conceptual level for this age group. Focus should remain on the connection between sunlight and sugar production and that this is called photosynthesis.
| Discovering life - Observing and classifying plants, animals, and fungi, including:
- classifying both familiar and unfamiliar organisms as plants, animals, or fungi using observable features (e.g. tūtae kēhua is a basket fungi)
- using observable physical features to distinguish different organisms (e.g. kōwhai, kererū, mushroom)
- classifying organisms into broad groups based on shared characteristics (e.g. flax, northern rātā and pōhutukawa)
- identifying and naming a selection of local plants and animals using both English and te reo Māori
| Life cycles - Identifying physical features that indicate relatedness between individuals and recognising variation of these features within and across related individuals or groups (e.g. parent/offspring, mammals, birds)
- Investigating life cycles, including:
- comparing simple aspects of life cycles in different animals, including life span and changes from young to adult (e.g. egg to caterpillar to butterfly, egg to chick to bird, tadpole to frog)
- observing and interpreting visible transformations in organisms as part of their life cycle (e.g. caterpillars transforming into butterflies, buds opening into flowers)
- Using observation and representations such as diagrams to explain how flowering plants reproduce through pollination, seed formation, and dispersal
| How organisms meet their needs - Comparing the functions of plant structures to explain how each contributes to growth, survival, or reproduction
- Carrying out basic tests on how environmental factors (e.g. light, water) affect plant growth
- Comparing the diets of different types of animals (herbivores, carnivores, omnivores) and explaining how their body structures (e.g. teeth, jaw size, snout/beak length, tongue shape) relate to the food types they consume
- Predicting the type of diet an animal eats based on the size and shape of its teeth
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| Body basics - The human body consists of major parts such as the head, neck, torso, arms (including elbows), legs (including knees), face, ears, eyes, nose, hair, mouth, and teeth.
- Different body parts are associated with senses, including sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
| What organisms need to survive - Animals and fungi depend on other organisms for nutrients, whereas plants can produce their own nutrition.
- Plants need water, carbon dioxide (often from the air), light, and space to survive.
- Animals need food (nutrition), water, oxygen (often from the air), and space to survive.
- Organisms have structural features and behaviours that help them to survive where they live. These are called adaptations.
- Animals have body parts for sensing, movement, protection, and resource gathering (e.g. kiwi have long, sensitive beaks for finding insects and worms in forest leaf litter and soil).
- Organisms sense stimuli (e.g. light, heat, contact) in their environment and respond to them.
| Support and movement - Humans and some other animals have internal skeletons (including spine, ribcage, and skull) and muscles for support, protection, and movement. These are called the skeletal and muscular systems. These systems work together.
- Some animals have external skeletons (e.g. exoskeletons in insects like the wētā and in spiders, shells on molluscs).
- Some animals have no skeleton (e.g. slugs) and some also have no muscles (e.g. jellyfish).
- Animals with an internal skeleton are called vertebrates. Animals without an internal skeleton are called invertebrates. Most animals are invertebrates.
- Some plants have a structural support system (e.g. trunk, branch, stem). Woody plants (e.g. trees) can grow taller than non-woody plants (e.g. grass, ponga).
- Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) accurately described and illustrated the muscles and skeletal structure of humans.
| Body basics Linking the shape and position of body parts to their function, including how the major sense organs help us explore our world (e.g. fingertips help us feel things like smooth, rough, hot, or cold)
| What organisms need to survive - Identifying the basic survival needs of a variety of animals and plants, including insects, birds, mammals, fish, and flowering plants, and linking these needs to their adaptations, including external features or behaviours:
- identifying and describing the functions of external body parts in animals and external parts in plants using real-life examples
- investigating adaptations of organisms in different environments
- Identifying and explaining responses to stimuli in plants and animals (e.g. seedlings growing towards light, wētā hiding when touched, goosebumps forming on skin in cold weather) using observations and simple cause-and-effect reasoning
| Support and movement - Applying simple movement analysis techniques, such as observing and recording their own or others’ movements, to understand how muscles create motion
- Investigating how muscles and bones interact during specific physical activities and identifying ways body structures provide protection and support in real-life scenarios
- Classifying plants based on their structural support system (e.g. trees have a woody trunk)
- Observing and classifying animals as invertebrate or vertebrate
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| Where and how organisms live - Organisms are found in almost every place on Earth.
- Some organisms are active during the day, others at night (nocturnal).
- Some organisms live alone (e.g. tree), and others live in groups (e.g. hive of bees).
- Karl von Frisch (1886–1982) investigated social behaviour in honeybees, including their communication through dance. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.
| Habitats - Habitats are places where organisms interact with other organisms and can find the resources they need for survival (e.g. Maui dolphins live in coastal waters where they can catch small fish).
- Communities are groups of organisms that live and interact in the same place.
- Animals and plants vary across habitats (e.g. beach, ocean, rainforest).
- A habitat supports a variety of organisms.
- A microhabitat is a small habitat (e.g. under stones or leaf litter).
- Whakaotirangi (Tainui) (1300s) introduced kumara to New Zealand and contributed to Polynesian horticultural knowledge. She applied knowledge of kumara habitats to successfully grow kumara.
| Food chains - Nutrition is transferred from one organism to another when organisms eat other organisms.
- Plants produce their own nutrition and form the beginning of a food chain, followed by herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores.
- Charles Elton (1900–1991) introduced the concepts of food chains and ecological pyramids. He is considered one of the founders of modern ecology.
| Where and how organisms live - Observing and describing how organisms interact with their surroundings (e.g. tūī flying between trees, wētā crawling under logs, sea stars clinging to rocks)
- Recognising and comparing behavioural rhythms in organisms related to time of day (e.g. morepork active at night, butterfly flying during the day)
- Identifying and describing social behaviours in organisms by comparing solitary and group living patterns (e.g. kākāpō foraging alone, honeybees living in hives)
| Habitats - Recognising and describing features of communities, habitats, and microhabitats (e.g. leaf litter, rock pools) through observation and data
- Using cause-and-effect language to explain how survival links to environment resources (e.g. kiwi eat forest floor insects, kina need to be in water)
- Identifying and explaining how the structural features and behaviours of organisms support their survival in their habitats (e.g. pāua have a large, muscular foot to stick to rocks)
| Food chains - Identifying simple nutritional relationships between animals and plants using basic food chains
- Note: Food webs are introduced in Year 5 and not appropriate for this level.
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