General Capabilities
General Capabilities equip young people with the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions to live and work successfully now and in the future. General Capabilities support and deepen student engagement with learning area content and are best developed within the context of learning areas.
Opportunities to develop General Capabilities in learning area content vary. The General Capabilities are identified in content descriptions when they are developed or applied through the Science content.
Go to General Capabilities for further information and to access the learning continuum for each general capability.
Students develop critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate and evaluate ideas and possibilities when seeking new pathways or solutions. In the Science learning area, critical and creative thinking is embedded in the skills of questioning and predicting, solving problems through planning and conducting investigations, and analysing and evaluating evidence to make decisions and draw conclusions. Students develop an understanding of science concepts through inquiry that involves selecting appropriate information, evaluating sources of information to formulate hypotheses and reflecting on the processes used to reach evidence-based conclusions. Students’ conceptual understanding becomes more sophisticated as they acquire an increasingly scientific view of the world and the ability to examine it from new perspectives.
Students develop digital literacy as they operate and manage digital systems, practise digital safety and wellbeing, and while investigating, creating and communicating. In particular, they use digital literacy to access information; collect, analyse and represent data and information; model and interpret concepts and relationships; and communicate science ideas, processes and information.
Digital tools such as animations and simulation software can support student understanding of abstract phenomena, as they give opportunities to view phenomena and test predictions that cannot be investigated through practical investigations in the classroom.
Students develop their understanding of ethical concepts and ethical decision-making processes in relation to science investigations, codes of practice, and the use of scientific information and science applications. They learn about ethical procedures for investigating and working with people, animals, data and materials. Students use scientific information to evaluate claims and to inform ethical decisions about a variety of social, environmental and personal issues. They consider their own roles as discerning citizens and learn to analyse biases and assumptions as they apply ethical concepts when making decisions in complex situations.
In Science, students develop literacy capability as they explore and investigate. They comprehend and compose texts, including those that give information; describe events and phenomena; recount experiments; present and evaluate data; give explanations; and present ideas, opinions and claims. They comprehend and compose multimodal texts, such as charts, graphs, diagrams, pictures, maps, animations, models and visual media. Language structures and text structures are used to link information and ideas, give descriptions and explanations, formulate hypotheses and construct evidence-based arguments capable of expressing an informed position.
Scientific vocabulary is often technical and includes specific terms for concepts and features of the world, as well as terms that encapsulate an entire process in a single word, such as photosynthesis. Language is therefore essential in providing the link between the concept itself and student understanding, and assessing whether the student has understood the concept.
Students develop and use numeracy through investigation of science concepts and application of science inquiry practices. The Science understanding content is closely linked to numeracy through the focus on scale and measurement, and patterns, order and organisation.
Students develop numeracy by focusing on measurement and data collection when applying science inquiry practices. They identify patterns in data and use mathematical relationships to represent those patterns. They represent primary and secondary data using tables, displays and visualisations, and interpret data to construct evidence-based arguments and conclusions. In later years, they engage in statistical analysis of data and consider issues of validity and reliability of data.
Students develop self-awareness and self-management skills as they direct their own learning, plan and carry out investigations, and become independent learners who can apply science understanding and practices to make decisions. They build skills in social awareness and social management as they engage in collaborative investigations that require them to work cooperatively in teams, share resources and processes, make group decisions and show leadership. Empathy and respect are developed as students identify and learn about diverse world views and perspectives that have informed the development of science, and ways in which different individuals and groups may perceive scientific knowledge, advances or solutions.