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Grade 4

Science and Technology

How to Use These Resources

TVO Learn is designed to meet each student where they are on their learning journey. Learning Activities are comprehensive and require guided instruction from an adult, while Resources for Learning, Apply the Learning prompts and Vocabulary lists work well to reinforce specific skills or to enable independent exploration of a subject. Use these helpful tips to get the most from TVO Learn.

Curriculum Overview

Science is a way of knowing which seeks to describe and explain the natural and physical world. An important aspect is making connections between skills and concepts, and the practical applications of science and technology, and learning about life systems, matter and energy, structures and mechanisms, and Earth and space systems. Students develop important scientific literacy and technological skills that will enable them to thrive in today's rapidly changing world, their future professional and personal lives, and to become active problem solvers in their communities. As students engage in STEM education, they develop transferrable skills that they need to meet the demands of today's global economy and society, and to become scientifically and technologically literate citizens.

The science and technology curriculum is divided into five strands:

  • STEM Skills and Connections
  • Life Systems: Habitats and Communities  
  • Matter and Energy: Light and Sound 
  • Structures and Mechanisms: Machines and Their Mechanisms
  • Earth and Space Systems: Rocks, Minerals, and Geological Processes

Interested in learning more? View Curriculum
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Learning Activities

Learning Activities provide opportunity for deeper exploration of a subject. Learning Activities provide opportunity for deeper exploration of a subject. Organized by grade and topic (or strand), students should be guided through each Learning Activity by an adult. Before clicking on a topic to prepare for or begin this guided instruction, be sure to read these helpful tips about how to get the most out of TVO Learn.

Learning Activities provide opportunity for deeper exploration of a subject. Learning Activities provide opportunity for deeper exploration of a subject. Organized by grade and topic (or strand), students should be guided through each Learning Activity by an adult. Before clicking on a topic to prepare for or begin this guided instruction, be sure to read these helpful tips about how to get the most out of TVO Learn.

Learning Activities
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To access this learning activity, please visit this page in a desktop or tablet browser.

Resources for Learning

Chosen by TVO educators, these resources support the curriculum outlined above. Review the below list of options along with the activities. Then, read, watch, listen or play to build understanding and knowledge.

Please be aware by accessing the resources below you will be leaving TVO Learn and entering other TVO domains that are subject to different privacy policies and terms of use.

Complete the suggested activities using these resources and other TVO resources.

Apply the Learning

Choose from the following to consolidate learning across all curriculum strands.

  • Create a living habitat containing a community and record changes over time while practicing safe handling of materials. What factors do you need to consider when setting up your habitat (e.g., location for container; creating the right climate, light, and humidity)? What equipment and materials (e.g., a container of the correct size, appropriate plant material and/or animals) will you need to create a habitat that meets the needs of the community it supports? What did you learn from your initial observations about meeting the needs of living things? What modifications, based on your observations, need to be made to keep the habitat healthy? 

  • Create a media product (poster, presentation, video) of an example of a food chain. 

  • Design, build, and test a pulley or gear system that performs a specific task. For example, a flag post, elevator or drawbridge. 

  • Research a pulley or gear system that is used in daily life and assess the impacts whether positive or negative. For example: escalator, elevator, cars. What is their purpose? 

  • Create a song or short drama presentation for younger students that will alert them to the dangers of exposure to intense light and sound. 

  • Make a list of objects that emit their own light in contrast with those that reflect light from other sources. 

  • Research devices that use the properties of light and sound. For example, a microscope or microphone. 

  • Create a poster about different igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and research how each is formed. 

  • Investigate the impacts of extracting and refining rocks and minerals for human use. Take into account different perspectives. For example, the perspectives of mine owners, the families of the miners, Indigenous communities, the refinery workers, manufacturers of items who need the refined rocks and minerals to make their products, residents who live in communities located near refineries and manufacturing facilities and who are concerned about the environment.

Vocabulary

Review this list of vocabulary associated with the curriculum. Practice spelling, research definitions, and find these vocabulary words when engaging with the TVO resources or completing learning activities.

Students should understand and be able to apply these words in context.

adaptation 

carnivore 

community 

consumer 

decomposer 

deforestation 

destruction 

depletion 

extinction 

food chain 

habitat 

herbivore 

hunting 

invasive species 

natural 

omnivore 

population 

producer 

terrarium

artificial 

beam 

device 

eclipse 

energy 

fluorescent 

loudness 

lens 

microscope 

microphone 

natural 

pitch 

prism 

property 

reflect 

refract 

system 

telescope 

vibration

build 

design 

direction 

distance 

elevator 

escalator 

force 

gear 

machine 

mechanisms

model 

pulley 

speed 

system 

test 

characteristic 

colour 

dispose 

extract 

fossils

hardness 

igneous 

magnetism 

mineral 

property 

rock 

sedimentary 

texture