Looking closely
Grade 5 science gives matter its first model — tiny moving particles — and then uses models all year: for floating and flying, for the body's systems, and for the sky. It also asks for code, and for experiments that are fair and honest.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 5
The subject: Science
- Relate the particle model of matter to solids, liquids and gases.
- Investigate forces in water and air, including buoyancy, lift and drag.
- Examine renewable and non-renewable energy resources.
- Analyze how climate, weather and farming affect one another.
- Investigate what the body's internal systems do.
- Interpret what can be seen of the stars, planets, Sun and Moon, and how it affects daily life.
- Use the design process to make computational artifacts, including code.
- Examine controlled experiments, including evidence, bias and ethics.
The last outcome is worth knowing about. Bias and ethics in a Grade 5 experiment mean simple things — not choosing results you like, and not harming anything to find out — but they are the first time science is described as something that has to be done honestly, not just carefully.
The words, first
These are the terms a teacher will use at a parent interview, defined before anything below uses them.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Particle model | The idea that all matter is made of tiny particles that are always moving. It explains melting, evaporating and why smells spread. |
| Buoyant force | The upward push of water (or air) on an object. Something floats when that push is as big as its weight. |
| Lift and drag | Lift is an upward push from air moving over a shape, like a wing. Drag is air or water pushing back against something moving through it. |
| Renewable, non-renewable | Energy sources that are replaced naturally — sunlight, wind, flowing water — and ones that run out, such as coal, oil and natural gas. |
| Weather, climate | Weather is what is happening today. Climate is the usual pattern over many years. |
| Body system | Organs working together on one job: digestive (food), respiratory (breathing), circulatory (blood). |
| Organ | A body part with a job: the heart, the lungs, the stomach. |
| Computational artifact | Something made with code — a program, an animation, a game. Grade 5 designs, builds and tests one. |
| Debug | Find and fix the mistake in a program or a plan. Testing is how bugs are found. |
| Controlled experiment | A test where only one thing is changed on purpose and everything else is kept the same. |
| Bias | Leaning towards the result you hoped for. In an experiment it shows up as ignoring the results you did not like. |
Solid: packed in rows, vibrating in place
Liquid: close together, sliding past each other
Gas: far apart, moving fast in every direction
What to do at home
- Melt something slowly — An ice cube on a plate, chocolate in a warm hand. Talk about what the particles are doing, not just what it looks like.
- Float an orange, then peel it — With its peel it floats; peeled, it usually sinks. The peel is full of tiny air pockets — buoyancy in a fruit bowl.
- Watch the chinook — A warm wind in January is weather. Alberta having chinooks at all is part of its climate. The difference is the whole weather-and-climate outcome.
- Trace dinner — Mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine. Say what each part does as you go.
- Measure a shadow — The same stick at breakfast, lunch and supper. The shortest shadow is around 1:30 in the afternoon in an Alberta summer, not at noon.
- Try a coding app together — Block-coding sites and apps let a child make something move. Getting it wrong and fixing it is the design process.
Sheets you can print for this
- Particles in motion — solid, liquid, gas
- Float or sink? — buoyancy
- A fair parachute test — drag, evidence and honesty
- Where energy comes from — renewable or not
- Weather or climate? — and what farmers do about it
- Body systems — who does what inside
- Code a path — write it, test it, debug it
The expectations above are paraphrased from Alberta Education's New K–6 curriculum fact sheets, which publish a snapshot of each grade rather than the complete program of studies. Alberta's full programs are at alberta.ca/curriculum.