Spain

The Science Curriculum in Primary and Lower Secondary Grades

In primary education, instruction is structured around areas of knowledge. Most of the scientific content is included in the Knowledge of the Natural, Social, and Cultural Environment. Among other objectives, this area of knowledge is explicitly designed to provide the foundation upon which science education will be built in later stages, through topics such as valuing and appreciating the natural environment and its care, valuing hygiene and health and accepting one’s body, and knowing and valuing familiar animals. However, at this educational level, the curriculum is global and integrated across subjects, so science education is enriched by contributions from other areas, and in turn will contribute to the achievement of more general educational objectives, including values, study habits, social skills, and communication skills.

The selection of content and organization of the primary education science curriculum reflects the relationship between science, life, and students’ interests more than structured knowledge according to scientific logic. Science at the primary level includes the following blocks of content:

• The Environment and Conservation—Basic elements of the physical environment (i.e., universe, air, and water) and introduction to the knowledge of ecosystems
• The Diversity of Living Things—Recognition of the existence of multiple forms of life and their classification based on characteristics with scientific significance (e.g., types of nutrition and environmental adaptation)
• Health and Personal Development—Organ systems of the human body and healthy lifestyles
• Matter and Energy—Mass and volume, power, energy and change, and energy sources
• Objects, Machines, and Technology—Materials and their uses, tools, mechanical operators, electronic devices, and information technology

Students are evaluated in terms of skill acquisition, with particular emphasis on the significance of the knowledge acquired, which is observed through students’ ability to give examples, classify, locate items in schemes, and relate causes and effects. Thus, the skills, goals, and content (and implicitly, the methodologies) in the curriculum set the level of progress that is expected from students throughout their educational process.

In particular for the fourth year of primary education, the evaluation criteria are:

• Recognize and explain relationships among physical world factors (e.g., soil, climate, topography, and vegetation) and the ways of life and actions of people, adopting an attitude of respect for ecological balance
• Identify and classify animals, plants, and rocks according to scientific criteria
• Identify and explain the consequences for one’s health and personal development of certain eating habits, hygiene, physical exercise, and rest
• Identify the main human uses of natural resources, noting advantages and disadvantages, using examples taken from daily life
• Identify sources of energy, including methods and machines to acquire energy, give examples of uses of energy, and value the responsible use of energy
• Analyze parts of objects and machines and their functions, planning and executing the construction of an object, showing attitudes of cooperation and attention to safety
• Obtain information about facts or phenomena, make predictions about natural events, integrate observational data and query basic sources, and communicate results through abstracts, images, graphics, and diagrams

At the secondary education level, the science curriculum is organized into subjects. In Grades 7 to 9 (the first three years of compulsory secondary education), Natural Science is a single core subject. In Grade 10, students have the option of choosing between two science subjects: Biology-Geology and Physics-Chemistry. Throughout this stage, students systematize and formalize their knowledge of science by learning the concepts and methods of the different scientific disciplines. The science curriculum objectives focus on understanding and applying scientific concepts, methods, and procedures and acquiring scientific attitudes, values, and habits.

The compulsory secondary education science curriculum is divided into blocks for each year. One block covers cross-curricular topics across the four grades, focusing on scientific methods and procedures (e.g., formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, interpreting information sources, and using tools). The remaining four blocks are organized around key structural concepts: Matter, Energy, Unity and Diversity, and Change and Interaction. These blocks cover conceptual and substantive topics and are distributed as follows:

• Grade 7—Earth in the universe (e.g., the solar system, planets, etc.); Earth’s structure (geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere); matter and its states; and living things and their diversity (e.g., vital functions, the cell, classification of living things, the five kingdoms of nature)
• Grade 8—Matter and energy (changes, sources, and transfers of energy); geological transformations (geological processes, rocks, origin of relief); life in action (vital functions, including nutrition, interaction, and reproduction); and the environment (ecosystems, biotic and abiotic factors, organisms, and consumers and decomposers)
• Grade 9—Physics and chemistry topics such as the unity and diversity of matter, the structure of substances, and chemical changes; and biology and geology topics such as health, the environment, and transformations due to external energy
• Grade 10—Students can choose either of these two subjects: Physics-Chemistry or Biology-Geology

In Grade 7 science, assessment focuses on students’ ability to apply scientific knowledge to real-world situations and contexts. According to the evaluation criteria, seventh grade students are expected to do the following:

• Interpret natural phenomena (e.g., day and night, time and seasons, eclipses, and tides) using models of the solar system and the movements of the Moon, Earth, and the Sun
• Describe the observations that make it possible to understand the universe (e.g., sphericity, movements of Earth, heliocentric and geocentric systems)
• Interpret the properties of matter (e.g., mass, volume) and the procedures used to investigate them
• Relate the properties of materials to their common uses, differentiate between compounds and mixtures, and apply separation techniques
• Know the properties of air and the atmosphere, recognize the impact of human activity on them, and interpret weather phenomena
• Explain the properties of water, the water cycle, the importance of water for life, and the impact of human activity on water resources
• Identify the most common rocks and minerals and their applications
• Recognize the cellular constitution of living things and their vital functions
• Classify living things into major taxonomic groups

In Grade 8 science, students are expected to do the following:

• Use the concept of energy to explain changes, and recognize renewable and nonrenewable energy sources in addition to their advantages and disadvantages
• Differentiate between heat and temperature and understand how they are measured, solve problems by applying concepts of thermal equilibrium, and recognize the effects of heat and movement of heat
• Explain natural phenomena related to sound and light transmission (e.g., reflection, refraction, optical devices)
• Identify the effects of geological processes on Earth’s surface and explain the formation of igneous and metamorphic rocks
• Recognize the risks associated with geological processes and how to avoid those risks
• Know the vital functions of living things (autotrophic and heterotrophic nutrition, types of reproduction, and interaction)
• Identify the biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem, diagram trophic relationships, identify Earth’s major biomes, and recognize the importance of preserving ecosystems