How can you tell they’ve got it: Evidence Supporting Ideas?

If they’ve got it, you’ll see things like: Distinguish between a claim and the evidence supporting it; Evaluate whether evidence is strong (fair test, multiple trials) or weak (single observation, no controls); Identify when evidence supports or refutes a scientific idea and explain why. Or just try it together: When your child reads a science claim — like 'plants grow faster with music' — can they evaluate whether the evidence actually supports it or if the test wasn't fair?

Science Scientific Inquiry Ages 9–11

Evidence Supporting Ideas

Your child can judge a science claim, like 'plants grow faster with music'. They ask if the test was fair and whether the evidence really backs it up.

In curriculum terms

Identify scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments, evaluating the strength of evidence

Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Distinguish between a claim and the evidence supporting it
Evaluate whether evidence is strong (fair test, multiple trials) or weak (single observation, no controls)
Identify when evidence supports or refutes a scientific idea and explain why

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Try this together

When your child reads a science claim — like 'plants grow faster with music' — can they evaluate whether the evidence actually supports it or if the test wasn't fair?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Drawing conclusions from evidenceages 9–11Must present own findings before evaluating strength of others' evidence

Inferring Characters' Feelings and Motivesages 7–10Evaluating scientific evidence to support or refute arguments draws on the inference and evidence-reading skills developed in English comprehension

Correlation vs Causationages 8–10Evaluating the strength of scientific evidence requires recognising when apparent correlations might not be causal — a key dimension of evidence quality

Learning from Mistakesages 8–9Evaluating the strength of evidence and refuting arguments draws on the universal error-analysis habit — asking why a claim might be wrong

Science Can Be Revisedages 9–11Evaluating evidence strength and arguing for or against scientific claims requires understanding that all scientific knowledge is provisional and subject to revision

Evidence Supporting Ideasthis skill · ages 9–11

Unlocks

Changing Scientific Knowledgeages 9–11Curriculum skill of evaluating scientific evidence supports evaluating competing dinosaur explanations

Drawing conclusions from evidenceages 12–13KS2 evidence evaluation (strong vs weak evidence) underpins KS3 ability to distinguish systematic from random errors

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 1 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9S6I05medium confidenceYear 6 · Science inquiry

compare methods and findings with those of others, recognise possible sources of error, pose questions for further investigation and select evidence to draw reasoned conclusions

AC9S5I05medium confidenceYear 5 · Science inquiry

compare methods and findings with those of others, recognise possible sources of error, pose questions for further investigation and select evidence to draw reasoned conclusions

AC9S3I05low confidenceYear 3 · Science inquiry

compare findings with those of others, consider if investigations were fair, identify questions for further investigation and draw conclusions

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

ST3-SCI-01low confidenceScience and Technology K-6 · Stage 3

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2S6I05medium confidenceScience · Levels 5 and 6 · Science Inquiry strand

VC2S4I01medium confidenceScience · Levels 3 and 4 · Science Inquiry strand

VC2S4I05low confidenceScience · Levels 3 and 4 · Science Inquiry strand

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.

Nearby on the map

Accurate Measurementages 9–11 Classifying living thingsages 9–11 Controlling variablesages 9–11 Drawing conclusions from evidenceages 9–11

All Scientific Inquiry skills →