What students learn in AC9S1U02
This unit helps students build a clear, usable understanding of Daily and seasonal changes. The goal is not to memorise one answer pattern. Students should be able to explain the idea, recognise it in a new example and apply it in a short practice or worksheet task.
- Start with the main idea: describe daily and seasonal changes in the environment and explore how these changes affect everyday life.
- Use concrete examples, pictures, oral explanation and short written responses before moving to independent practice.
- making and recording observations of phenomena such as changes to weather, seasonal changes to plants such as colour or dropping of leaves, and growth of flowers or fruit noticing how daily weather indicators and seasonal patterns help us to make plans for activities in our daily lives
- Finish with mixed questions so students must choose the correct strategy rather than copy the last example.
Curriculum coverage and elaborations
The content description and elaborations below show the curriculum ideas taught in this unit. Items marked as teaching context support lesson planning but may not appear in the initial eight-question activity.
- Content description: describe daily and seasonal changes in the environment and explore how these changes affect everyday life
- E1: making and recording observations of phenomena such as changes to weather, seasonal changes to plants such as colour or dropping of leaves, and growth of flowers or fruit
- E2: noticing how daily weather indicators and seasonal patterns help us to make plans for activities in our daily lives
- E3: investigating how seasonal changes affect plants and animals, including animals that hibernate and migrate
- E4: investigating how changes in the weather affect plants and animals, including humans
- E5: exploring how people make clothing choices using predictions of weather or knowledge of seasonal changes
- E6: recognising the extensive knowledges of daily and seasonal changes in weather patterns and landscape held by First Nations Australians (teaching context)
- E7: exploring how First Nations Australians’ concepts of time and weather patterns explain how things happen in the world around them (teaching context)
How to use this unit
Read the topic guide, use the teacher slide for instruction, then complete the Worksheet, Practice and Test. These three activities use the same eight-question unit bank.
Teacher resource
AC9S1U02 teacher slide
Use this one-page PDF to introduce the key idea, vocabulary and teaching sequence before students begin the activities.
Open teacher slide (PDF)Common mistakes to watch for
- Describing what is seen without connecting it to a question, pattern or prediction.
- Using everyday words only and missing simple scientific vocabulary.
- Changing more than one thing in an investigation, which makes the comparison unfair.
International curriculum mapping
This table gives closest-topic mapping for search and planning. The Australian Curriculum code is exact; overseas entries are broad equivalents because each jurisdiction structures outcomes differently.
| Region | Curriculum | Closest mapping |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Australian Curriculum v9.0 | AC9S1U02 — describe daily and seasonal changes in the environment and explore how these changes affect everyday life |
| Victoria | Victorian Curriculum F-10 | Year 1 Science: closest match in Earth and space sciences. Use this page as a VIC-aligned practice and worksheet reference. |
| NSW | NSW Curriculum | Stage 1 Science: closest content focus for Daily and seasonal changes and related outcomes. |
| United States | Common Core / NGSS | Grade 1 NGSS science closest topic match for Daily and seasonal changes. |
| England / UK | National Curriculum | Key Stage 1 / Year 1: closest programme-of-study match for Daily and seasonal changes. |
| Canada | Provincial and territory curricula | Grade 1 closest topic match. Canada varies by province, so use this as a broad Ontario/BC-style learning outcome reference. |
| New Zealand | New Zealand Curriculum | Level 1 Science: closest achievement-objective topic for Daily and seasonal changes. |
| India | NCERT / CBSE | Class 1 closest NCERT/CBSE topic match for Daily and seasonal changes. |