Year 3 Science Objectives

Plants

• To identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants: roots, stem/trunk, leaves and flowers.
• To explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant.
• To investigate the way in which water is transported within plants.
• To explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.

 

Animals, including humans 

• To identify that animals, including humans, need the right types and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat.
• To identify that humans and some other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement.

 

Rocks 

• To compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties.
• To describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock.
• To recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.

 

Light

• To recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light.
• To notice that light is reflected from surfaces.
• To recognise that light from the sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect their eyes. 
• To recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by a solid object.
• To find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change.

 

Forces and magnets

• To compare how things move on different surfaces
• To notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance.
• To observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others describe magnets as having two poles.
• To predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing.
• To compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials.