Year 4 Science – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Ecosystems and Food Chains

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 4 Science in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Ecosystems and Food Chains”.

Students explore the roles of producers, consumers and decomposers in ecosystems and learn to represent energy flow through food chains.

Lesson sequence (8 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Exploring Our Local Ecosystem - What Lives Where?
2. Meet the Producers - How Plants Make Their Own Food
3. The Sun's Energy - Primary Source of Life on Earth
4. Primary Consumers - Animals That Eat Plants
5. Secondary Consumers - Predators in Our Ecosystem
6. Decomposers - Nature's Recyclers Break Things Down
7. Building Food Chains - Showing Energy Flow with Arrows
8. Ecosystem Interactions - How All Living Things Connect

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 1

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 1 runs from Monday 2 February to Thursday 2 April — 9 weeks for WA public schools. With 8 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.