Deep-Sea Life Without Sunlight
Contrast photosynthesis (energy from sunlight) with chemosynthesis (energy from oxidising chemicals like hydrogen sulphide); describe hydrothermal vent communities: chemoautotrophic bacteria form the base of a food web supporting tube worms, giant clams, and vent crabs with no sunlight; explore what deep-sea life tells us about the origin of life on Earth; explain why NASA studies ocean vents as analogues for potential life around hydrothermal activity on Europa and Enceladus
Try this together
Can your child describe a community of animals living at the bottom of the ocean that gets its energy from volcanic chemicals rather than sunlight — and explain why scientists are excited about what this might mean for life on other planets?
Where this sits on the map
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solid = must come firstdashed = helps
Curriculum alignment
Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).
Show candidate curriculum codes · 2 ACARA · 1 VIC
Australian Curriculum v9 candidate
examine how particular structural features and behaviours of living things enable their survival in specific habitats
investigate the physical conditions of a habitat and analyse how the growth and survival of living things is affected by changing physical conditions
Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only
These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.