What Ontario grade 6 students learn in science and technology

Your child will be able to use a scientific research process, which involves asking questions, planning experiments, collecting and analyzing information, and drawing conclusions, to carry out investigations.

Your child will be able to use a step-by-step scientific process to explore questions and test ideas.

Your child will be able to use an engineering design process (a step-by-step approach to solving problems) to plan, build, and test different devices, models, structures, or systems.

Your child will understand how to follow safety rules during science activities, including wearing the right protective gear and using tools and materials carefully.

Your child will be able to share their science discoveries using the right words and in a way that makes sense to different people and for different reasons.

Your child will be able to write and use simple computer programs to help them explore science ideas and create models, including understanding how to put information into the program in different ways.

Your child will be able to explain how computer coding and new technologies affect daily life, including jobs like plumbing or electrical work.

Your child will learn how science and technology are used in different jobs, including hands-on trades, to solve everyday problems.

Your child will explore how science and technology, combined with other school subjects, can help solve problems we face in the real world.

Your child will learn about how different groups of people have helped advance science and technology throughout history.

Your child will learn why having many different kinds of plants and animals (biodiversity) is good for the environment, and what happens when that variety decreases.

Your child will be able to look at a local problem that affects the variety of life (biodiversity) in our area, understand different viewpoints about it, and then come up with a plan to help solve it and put that plan into action.

Your child will be able to describe what makes different groups of living things unique and use these features to organize them into a classification system, like how scientists group animals.

Your child will learn what biodiversity means, understanding that it's all about the variety of life on Earth, from differences within the same animal or plant species to the many different kinds of species in an area, and even the variety of different natural places and the living things they support.

Your child will learn how differences within a group of plants or animals (biodiversity) help them survive.

Your child will learn how having a variety of different living things in an ecosystem helps that ecosystem stay strong and healthy, even when things change.

Your child will learn how different living things depend on each other and their surroundings to survive, and how these connections help keep a variety of life forms healthy and in balance.

Your child will be able to explain how invasive species (plants or animals that are not native to an area and cause harm to the environment) reduce the variety of living things in local ecosystems.

Your child will learn how changes in the climate lead to fewer different kinds of plants and animals, and understand what happens when we lose that variety.

Your child will learn why having many different kinds of plants and animals (biodiversity) is important for farming, including farming practices used by Indigenous peoples around the world.

Your child will be able to explain how different ways of making electricity in Canada affect people, nature, and the climate, including the special impact on Indigenous communities.

Your child will be able to evaluate ways to use less electricity, whether it comes from sources that can be replenished (like solar) or not (like fossil fuels). They will also learn to encourage everyone at school to use electricity wisely.

Your child will be able to explain everyday events involving static electricity, like why a balloon sticks to a wall after being rubbed, using the basic rules of how static electricity works.

Your child will learn about current electricity (the flow of electricity through a circuit) and how it is similar to and different from static electricity (a build-up of electric charge on a surface).

Your child will be able to tell the difference between materials that let electricity flow through them easily (conductors) and those that block electricity (insulators).

Your child will be able to explain how different technologies change other types of energy into electricity.

Your child will be able to explain how electricity can change into other kinds of energy, like how it makes light in a bulb or heat in a toaster.

Your child will be able to explain what each part of a simple electrical circuit does.

Your child will be able to tell the difference between two ways electricity can flow: a "series" circuit where the electricity goes through one item after another, and a "parallel" circuit where it splits off to power different items at the same time. They will also learn about everyday examples of where each type of circuit is used.

Your child will be able to understand how aviation technologies, like airplanes and drones, affect people and communities both nearby and around the world.

Your child will be able to explain how the characteristics of air are used in things that fly.

Your child will learn about the four main forces that allow planes to fly: lift (the upward push), weight (gravity pulling down), thrust (the forward push), and drag (air resistance). They will understand how these forces work together to make flight happen.

Your child will learn how flying machines and living things use pushes and pulls (forces) to control how they fly.

Your child will be able to explain how to change the four forces that make an aircraft fly: lift (the upward force), weight (the downward force), thrust (the forward force), and drag (the backward force).

Your child will be able to describe what makes it possible for different living things to fly, including their body parts and special features.

Your child will learn about the challenges astronauts face in space, and how they stay healthy and happy while exploring.

Your child will learn how technology used for space exploration helps us observe and understand changes happening to Earth's environment, such as climate change.

Your child will be able to understand the good and bad effects of exploring space on both people and the environment, considering different points of view.

Your child will learn about the different parts of our solar system, such as the Sun, Earth, other planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and meteoroids, and be able to describe what makes each of them unique.

Your child will be able to tell the difference between mass, which is the amount of stuff in an object, and weight, which is how strongly gravity pulls on that object.

Your child will understand how gravity pulls objects down and how that pull is measured as weight.

Your child will be able to tell the difference between objects in space that create their own light, like stars, and those that only reflect light from other sources, like planets.

Your child will be able to explain how the way the Earth, Moon, and Sun move and are positioned in relation to each other causes different effects we see.

Your child will learn about different technologies used to explore space and understand how new inventions have helped us learn more about it.