Year 5 Technologies – Term 3 (WA Curriculum): How Technologies Shape Our Communities

What this unit covers

In Term 3, Year 5 Technologies in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “How Technologies Shape Our Communities”.

Students explore how various technologies work together to create systems that serve communities, while developing design thinking and evaluation skills.

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. Investigating Transport Systems in Our Community
2. Mapping Technology Combinations in Public Transport
3. Designing a School Food Garden System
4. Planning Technology Resources for Food Production
5. Creating Electrical Circuits with Switches and LEDs
6. Building Movement Sensors for Community Safety
7. Designing Force Transfer Systems Using Simple Machines
8. Evaluating How Technologies Improve Community Life

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Skills 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 3

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 3 runs from Monday 20 July to Friday 25 September — 10 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.