STE for 3rd Class

Curriculum Mapping Student Devices
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This course introduces primary pupils to core STE concepts through hands-on exploration of the human body, Irish habitats, materials and their properties, forces, energy sources, light, simple machines, and the basics of computational thinking and coding in Scratch. Pupils conduct fair tests, build models, classify living things, and follow the full engineering design process from empathy and prototyping to testing and iteration on a real school-based problem. Distinctive emphasis on practical enquiry, environmental responsibility, and creative problem-solving equips learners with foundational STEM skills and confidence.
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Open the year by naming the main organs of the body and where they sit, then investigate how one organ works, keeps healthy and reacts to a stimulus, before turning to classifying Irish plants and animals and meeting a first simple food chain. The first lesson sets the year's STEM eyes tone: the long story of people figuring out how the world works.

STEM Eyes and the Human Body
STEM All Around Us: the Story of Figuring Things Out Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Main Organs of the Human Body Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Heart: Feeling Your Pulse Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Lungs: How We Breathe
The Eye and Reacting to a Stimulus
Classifying Irish Plants and Animals
Sorting Irish Animals by Their Features
A Branching Key for Irish Plants and Trees
Living Together: a Habitat and Its Food Chain

From the properties and states that make a material right for a job, through the class's first fair test (melting ice), to gentle heating and cooling, dissolving, conductors and insulators of heat, and a first look at materials and the environment. This module teaches fair testing in full for the first time and models it tightly.

Properties, States and the First Fair Test
Sorting Materials by Their Properties
Solids, Liquids and Gases
Our First Fair Test: Which Place Melts Ice Fastest?
Changes, Heat and the Environment
Heating and Cooling: What Melts, What Stays?
Dissolving: What Disappears in Water?
Conductors and Insulators of Heat
Materials and Our Environment: Sort the Classroom Waste

Investigate everyday forces, use fair testing to compare them, build simple machines, sort renewable and non-renewable energy and watch stored energy change to movement, then explore light: sources, reflection, the spectrum and magnifying. The fair-testing skill met in Materials is revisited here with forces.

Forces and Simple Machines
Pushes and Pulls All Around Us
Make It Move: a Force Fair Test
Friction: Which Surface Grips Most?
Simple Machines: Ramps and Levers
Energy and Light
Where Energy Comes from: Renewable or Not?
Storing and Changing Energy
Light: Natural and Artificial Sources, and How We See
Light: Reflection, Colour and a Closer Look

From what digital and non-digital technologies do for us, through inputs, processes and outputs, to first computational thinking (unplugged precise instructions and patterns) and a first run of real coding in Scratch. Pupils meet how technologies work and then write, run and debug real Scratch programs.

What Technology Does and Thinking Like a Computer
What Does Technology Do for Us?
Inputs, Processes and Outputs
Thinking Like a Computer: Precise Instructions (Unplugged)
Decompose and Spot the Pattern (Unplugged)
Coding in Scratch
Coding in Scratch: Sequences
Scratch: Loops, Events and Finding the Bug

Build the foundations of the design process: start with a user and their need, sketch a clear plan, build and test a prototype, and improve it, through structures and a first short design-build project on a real problem for a real person.

Empathy, Plans and Strong Structures
Engineers Start with the User: Empathy
Drawing a Design Others Can Build
Build a Strong, Stable Tower
Test a Structure Fairly: Which Shape Is Strongest?
Make It Better for Someone: a Design-build Project
Find a Problem Worth Solving
Build the Prototype
Test, Improve and Share

Open the year by naming the main organs of the body and where they sit, then investigate how one organ works, keeps healthy and reacts to a stimulus, before turning to classifying Irish plants and animals and meeting a first simple food chain. The first lesson sets the year's STEM eyes tone: the long story of people figuring out how the world works.

STEM Eyes and the Human Body
STEM All Around Us: the Story of Figuring Things Out Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Main Organs of the Human Body Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Heart: Feeling Your Pulse Investigation Journal Teacher Resources
The Lungs: How We Breathe
The Eye and Reacting to a Stimulus
Classifying Irish Plants and Animals
Sorting Irish Animals by Their Features
A Branching Key for Irish Plants and Trees
Living Together: a Habitat and Its Food Chain

From the properties and states that make a material right for a job, through the class's first fair test (melting ice), to gentle heating and cooling, dissolving, conductors and insulators of heat, and a first look at materials and the environment. This module teaches fair testing in full for the first time and models it tightly.

Properties, States and the First Fair Test
Sorting Materials by Their Properties
Solids, Liquids and Gases
Our First Fair Test: Which Place Melts Ice Fastest?
Changes, Heat and the Environment
Heating and Cooling: What Melts, What Stays?
Dissolving: What Disappears in Water?
Conductors and Insulators of Heat
Materials and Our Environment: Sort the Classroom Waste

Investigate everyday forces, use fair testing to compare them, build simple machines, sort renewable and non-renewable energy and watch stored energy change to movement, then explore light: sources, reflection, the spectrum and magnifying. The fair-testing skill met in Materials is revisited here with forces.

Forces and Simple Machines
Pushes and Pulls All Around Us
Make It Move: a Force Fair Test
Friction: Which Surface Grips Most?
Simple Machines: Ramps and Levers
Energy and Light
Where Energy Comes from: Renewable or Not?
Storing and Changing Energy
Light: Natural and Artificial Sources, and How We See
Light: Reflection, Colour and a Closer Look

From what digital and non-digital technologies do for us, through inputs, processes and outputs, to first computational thinking (unplugged precise instructions and patterns) and a first run of real coding in Scratch. Pupils meet how technologies work and then write, run and debug real Scratch programs.

What Technology Does and Thinking Like a Computer
What Does Technology Do for Us?
Inputs, Processes and Outputs
Thinking Like a Computer: Precise Instructions (Unplugged)
Decompose and Spot the Pattern (Unplugged)
Coding in Scratch
Coding in Scratch: Sequences
Scratch: Loops, Events and Finding the Bug

Build the foundations of the design process: start with a user and their need, sketch a clear plan, build and test a prototype, and improve it, through structures and a first short design-build project on a real problem for a real person.

Empathy, Plans and Strong Structures
Engineers Start with the User: Empathy
Drawing a Design Others Can Build
Build a Strong, Stable Tower
Test a Structure Fairly: Which Shape Is Strongest?
Make It Better for Someone: a Design-build Project
Find a Problem Worth Solving
Build the Prototype
Test, Improve and Share

Curriculum Mapping

See exactly how this course maps to official curriculum specifications

NCCA STE Education Specification (2025)
Curriculum Area
Outcomes
Nature of STEM
S1.3.1
Living things
S2.3.1 S2.3.2 S2.3.3
Materials
S3.3.1 S3.3.2
Energy and forces
S4.3.1 S4.3.2 S4.3.3
Technology
S5.3.1 S5.3.2
Engineering
S6.3.1

The curriculum does not include official reference codes for individual learning outcomes, so we have assigned a code scheme to make it easier to identify and track coverage.

What Students Will Learn

Learning Goals

  1. Identify the main organs of the human body, locate them, and explain their basic functions through observation and modelling
  2. Classify Irish plants and animals using observable features, branching keys, habitats and food chains
  3. Investigate properties and states of materials, conduct simple fair tests on melting, dissolving, and heat conduction, and sort classroom waste for environmental impact
  4. Explore forces, friction, simple machines, energy sources, and light behaviour through practical investigations and fair tests
  5. Understand how everyday technology works using inputs, processes and outputs, decompose problems, and write basic Scratch programs with sequences, loops and events

Learning Outcomes

  1. Identify the five main human organs, describe their locations and basic functions, and demonstrate how the heart and lungs respond to exercise by measuring pulse and breathing rate.
  2. Sort Irish animals and plants using observable features, construct a branching identification key, and build a food chain from a schoolyard microhabitat.
  3. Sort materials by physical properties, distinguish solids, liquids and gases, and conduct fair tests to compare melting rates, dissolving, and heat insulation.
  4. Recognise pushes, pulls and friction in everyday situations, carry out fair tests on forces and simple machines, and classify energy sources as renewable or non-renewable.
  5. Decompose tasks into sequences and loops, write and debug simple Scratch programs using sequences, loops and events, and follow the full engineering design process to build, test and improve a prototype that solves a real user problem.

What You'll Need

Required Equipment

Equipment used in some of the lessons in this course. Items can be shared among students.

IWB/Projector/Large Screen
IWB/Projector/Large Screen

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