STE for 6th Class

Move outward from classifying living things into ecosystems thinking: microhabitats and adaptation, food chains and webs, what plants need (an observation-over-time fair test), and life cycles linked to the Irish year. Finish with a four-lesson child-led biodiversity and sustainability action project in the school grounds that connects Living things to the wider field of Biology and to Irish pollinator decline.

1. Habitats, Food Webs, Plants and Life Cycles
2. 1 Microhabitats and Adaptation Sample lesson
3. 2 Food Chains, Webs and Interdependence
4. 3 Plants: What Do Plants Need to Grow?
5. 4 Life Cycles and the Irish Year
6. Biodiversity and Sustainability Action in Our School Grounds
7. 5 Audit Our Grounds
8. 6 Why Biodiversity Matters: Research and Food Webs
9. 7 Plan and Take an Action
10. 8 Measure, Present and Reflect

Deepen Materials into change and Chemistry: dissolving and recovering, reversible versus irreversible change, and making new materials. Then run a three-lesson open-ended fair-test project on mixing and separating, ending in a clean-water challenge, and close with materials choices in Irish life and industry. Recording and presenting results is deepened across the separating project.

1. Mixtures, Reversible and Irreversible Change
2. 9 Mixtures and Solutions: Filter Sand, Start the Salt Wait
3. 10 Heating and Cooling: Reversible or Not?
4. 11 Irreversible Changes and Chemistry
5. Mixing and Separating: an Extended Fair Test
6. 12 Plan and Run the Fair Test
7. 13 Analyse, Present and Re-test
8. 14 Clean the Dirty Water: Apply It
9. Materials in Irish Life and Industry
10. 15 Materials in Everyday Irish Life

Deepen Energy and forces into demanding Stage 4 physics: air resistance, the force of moving water, pulleys and gears, and soundproofing. Build real low-voltage circuits, identify conductors and insulators, design a circuit that does a job, and audit energy use at school linked to clean energy in Ireland. Connects to the wider field of Physics.

1. Forces in Action: Gravity, Water, Machines and Sound
2. 16 Gravity, Falling and Air Resistance: the Spinner Fair Test
3. 17 The Force of Moving Water
4. 18 Pulleys and Gears
5. 19 Sound: Travelling and Muffling Sound
6. Electricity, Circuits and Energy Use
7. 20 Electricity: Building Simple Circuits
8. 21 Electricity: Switches, Conductors and a Quiz Buzzer
9. 22 Energy in Our School: Using Less, Going Clean

Deepen technology into a real coding build and working with data: a three-lesson MakeCode Arcade game project, then micro:bit lessons that collect, log and present data, finishing with organising class data as tables and charts. Computational thinking taught with reused Coding Ireland classroom-tested coding lessons. Digital-systems basics and first Scratch sit in 5th Class.

1. Coding Build: Make a Makecode Arcade Game
2. 23 Plan and Start the Build
3. 24 Build and Debug the Core Features
4. 25 Finish, Test and Share
5. Data with Devices and Presenting Data
6. 26 Data with a Micro:bit
7. 27 Micro:bit: Logging Data Over Time
8. 28 Working with Data: Tables, Charts and What They Tell Us

Apply the full Stage 4 design process at depth: consider user needs, sketch plans, build and test a prototype, iterate, and present an analysis of the design. Anchored by a four-lesson bird-feeder design-build for Irish garden birds, a mechanisms build, a beam-orientation investigation, and a two-lesson integrated STEM capstone that brings science, technology and engineering together.

1. Design-build: a Bird Feeder for the School Garden
2. 29 Ask, Imagine and Plan
3. 30 Build the Prototype
4. 31 Test, Improve and Re-test
5. 32 Present the Design Analysis
6. Mechanisms and Strong Structures
7. 33 Mechanisms: Making Things Move
8. 34 Why Beams Are Deep, Not Wide
9. Integrated STEM Capstone
10. 35 Design and Build the Solution
11. 36 Test, Present and Reflect