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Developing language skills: reading and writing

As a Physical Sciences educator you need to engage in the teaching of language. This is particularly important for learners for whom the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) is not their home language. It is important to provide learners with opportunities to develop and improve their language skills in the context of learning Physical Sciences. It will therefore be critical to afford learners opportunities to read scientific texts, to write reports, paragraphs and short essays as part of the assessment, especially (but not only) in the informal assessments for learning.

Six main knowledge areas inform the Physical Sciences. These are:

  • Matter and Materials
  • Chemical Systems
  • Chemical Change
  • Mechanics
  • Waves, Sound and Light
  • Electricity and Magnetism

Time allocation of the physical sciences in the curriculum

The teaching time for Physical Sciences is 4 hours per week, with 40 weeks in total per grade. The time allocated for the teaching of content, concepts and skills includes the practical work. These are an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

Grade No. of Weeks Allocated Content, Concepts&Skills (Weeks) Formal Assessment
10 40 30 10
11 40 30 10
12 40 28 12

Topics and content to be dealt with in grade 10

(Consult the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement for Physical Sciences for an overview of Grades 10 - 12)

Topic Content
Mechanics Introduction to vectors&scalars; motion in one dimension (reference frame, position, displacement and distance, average speed, average velocity, acceleration, instantaneous velocity, instantaneous speed, description of motion in words, diagrams, graphs and equations).Energy (gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy, mechanical energy, conservation of mechanical energy (in the absence of dissipative forces).
  • 30 hours
Waves, Sound&Light Transverse pulses on a string or spring (pulse, amplitude superposition of pulses); transverse waves (wavelength, frequency, amplitude, period, wave speed, longitudinal waves (on a spring, wavelength, frequency, amplitude, period, wave speed, sound waves); sound (pitch, loudness, quality (tone),ultrasound); electromagnetic radiation (dual (particle/wave); nature of electromagnetic (EM) radiation, nature of EM radiation, EM spectrum, nature of EM as particle – energy of a photon related to frequency and wavelength).
  • 16 hours
Electricity&Magnetism Magnetism (magnetic field of permanent magnets, poles of permanent magnets, attraction and repulsion, magnetic field lines, earth’s magnetic field, compass); electrostatics (two kinds of charge, force exerted by charges on each other (descriptive), attraction between charged and uncharged objects (polarisation), charge conservation, charge quantization ); electric circuits (emf, potential difference (pd), current, measurement of voltage (pd) and current, resistance, resistors in parallel).
  • 14 hours
Matter&Materials Revise matter and classification (materials; heterogeneous and homogeneous mixtures; pure substances; names and formulas; metals and non-metals; electrical and thermal conductors and insulators; magnetic and non magnetic materials); states of matter and the kinetic molecular theory; atomic structure (models of the atom; atomic mass and diameter; protons, neutrons and electrons; isotopes; energy quantization and electron configuration); periodic table (position of the elements; similarities in chemical properties in groups, electron configuration in groups); chemical bonding (covalent bonding; ionic bonding; metallic bonding); particles substances are made of (atoms and compounds; molecular substances and ionic substances).
  • 28 hours
Chemical Systems Hydrosphere
  • 8 hours
Chemical Change Physical and chemical change (separation by physical means; separation by chemical means; conservation of atoms and mass; law of constant composition; conservation of energy); representing chemical change (balanced chemical equations); reactions in aqueous solution (ions in aqueous solutions; ion interaction; electrolytes; conductivity; precipitation; chemical reaction types); stoichiometry (mole concept).
  • 24 hours

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Source:  OpenStax, Physical science grade 10 teachers' guide - siyavula webbook. OpenStax CNX. Aug 10, 2011 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11342/1.1
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