Year 6 Science – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Living Things and Changing Environments

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 6 Science in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Living Things and Changing Environments”.

Students explore how environmental changes affect the growth and survival of living things, including human impacts and Indigenous knowledge systems.

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 How Plants Respond to Different Light Conditions
2. Exploring the Effects of Temperature Changes on Microorganisms
3. Discovering How Soil Type Affects Plant Growth and Survival
4. Understanding How Salt Levels Impact Living Things
5. Examining Coral Bleaching and Rising Ocean Temperatures
6. Learning from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Seasonal Calendars
7. Investigating Human Activities That Change Animal Habitats
8. Designing Solutions to Protect Living Things from Environmental Changes

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.