How things work
Grade 6 science asks for explanations. Why a sidewalk has gaps, why a bridge holds, why the climate is changing — and what a hypothesis is for. In June, it is tested in real-life situations.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 6
The subject: Science
- Relate the heating and cooling of particles to how matter behaves, including expansion and contraction.
- Analyze forces — internal, external, action and reaction — in interactions between objects.
- Investigate energy resources and what influences how they are chosen and managed.
- Investigate what affects climate and climate change, including personal actions.
- Investigate the characteristics, parts and biodiversity of ecosystems.
- Investigate the bodies of the solar system and the technology used to explore it.
- Examine abstraction, coding structures, and the impact of computers and technology.
- Describe the role of explanation and hypothesis in science.
The achievement test is 50 questions in an hour, with no calculator, and questions often come in groups around one real-life situation. Climate and ecosystems are the biggest share (about 26–32%), then matter and energy resources (22–28%); explanation and hypothesis is about one question in six.
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 |
|---|---|
| Expansion, contraction | Getting bigger when heated and smaller when cooled, because particles move faster and spread out, or slow down and pack closer. |
| External force | A force on an object from outside it: an applied push or pull, friction, or the elastic force of a spring. |
| Internal force | A force inside an object in response: tension (pulled), compression (squeezed), shear (pushed in opposite directions) or torsion (twisted). |
| Action and reaction | Every push has an equal push back in the opposite direction — Newton's third law. Push the boards and they push you away. |
| Energy resource | Something that supplies energy: wood, wind, water, sunlight, fossil fuels. Some are used as found; others are processed first, often into electricity. |
| Climate change | A long-term change in Earth's usual weather patterns. Today's is driven mainly by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. |
| Greenhouse gas | A gas, such as carbon dioxide, that traps heat in the atmosphere. |
| Biotic, abiotic | The living parts of an ecosystem, and the non-living ones: sunlight, water, soil, air, temperature. |
| Photosynthesis | How plants use light, water and carbon dioxide to make sugar for food, giving off oxygen. |
| Producer, consumer, decomposer | Makes its own food from sunlight; eats other living things; breaks down dead things and returns them to the soil. |
| Biodiversity | The variety of living things in a place. More variety usually makes an ecosystem more stable. |
| Astronomical unit (AU) | The average distance from Earth to the Sun, about 150 million kilometres. |
| Loop, condition | In code, a loop repeats instructions; a condition (if … otherwise) chooses between them. |
| Hypothesis | A testable prediction with a reason: if … then … because … |
Compression: pushed together, squeezed
Tension: pulled apart, stretched
Both at once: a loaded beam is squeezed along the top and stretched along the bottom
What to do at home
- Loosen a jar lid — Run hot water over a stuck metal lid. Why does it work? The lid expands more than the glass.
- Name the force — Squeeze a pop can (compression), pull a rope (tension), cut with scissors (shear), wring a cloth (torsion). Each one feels different in the hands.
- Spot the energy on a drive — Wind turbines, pump jacks, solar panels, a hydro dam. Which resource is each one using, and is it being turned into electricity?
- Name the food chain on a walk — Grass, a hare, a coyote. In the city: seeds, a sparrow, a cat. Who eats whom, and who breaks it all down?
- Look up tonight — Find a planet — Venus and Jupiter are the brightest. Apps and a sky chart help. It is further than it looks.
- Ask for a hypothesis — Before testing anything at home, ask for a guess with a reason: if … then … because.
Sheets you can print for this
- Hot and cold — expansion and contraction
- Forces in action — inside, outside, action and reaction
- Choosing energy — energy resources and how they are managed
- What makes a climate — and what changes it
- An ecosystem web — living, non-living, and who eats whom
- The solar system to scale — distances and exploration
- Loops and conditions — reading code
- Make a hypothesis — explanation and prediction
The expectations above are paraphrased from Alberta Education's Grade 6 programs of study, published on new LearnAlberta.