Year 7 Science – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Classification and Ecosystems

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 7 Science in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Classification and Ecosystems”.

Students explore how organisms are classified using tools like dichotomous keys and investigate energy flow through food chains and webs while examining human impacts on ecosystems.

Lesson sequence (30 lessons)

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

1. Introduction to Classification: Why Do Scientists Group Living Things?
2. Exploring the Five Kingdoms of Life
3. Characteristics of Animals vs Plants vs Fungi
4. Building Your First Dichotomous Key
5. Classifying Vertebrates: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals
6. Investigating Invertebrates: Arthropods and Other Groups
7. Mammal Classification: Monotremes, Marsupials and Placentals
8. Using Dichotomous Keys to Identify Local Plants
9. Creating a Classification System for School Ground Organisms
10. Advanced Dichotomous Key Construction Techniques
11. Introduction to Ecosystems: What Makes a Habitat?
12. Producers, Consumers and Decomposers in Nature
13. Understanding Photosynthesis: How Plants Capture Energy
14. Cellular Respiration: How Organisms Use Energy
15. Building Simple Food Chains
16. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Consumers
17. Constructing Food Webs: Complex Feeding Relationships
18. Energy Flow: Following Energy Through Ecosystems
19. Investigating a Local Ecosystem's Food Web
20. Human Impact: Overfishing and Marine Ecosystems
21. Pesticides and Their Effects on Food Webs
22. Habitat Destruction: Breaking the Food Chain
23. Invasive Species: Disrupting Natural Balance
24. Predicting Ecosystem Changes When Species Are Removed
25. Case Study: Cane Toads in Australian Ecosystems
26. Conservation Success Stories: Protecting Food Webs
27. Designing Solutions to Reduce Human Impact
28. Monitoring Ecosystem Health Using Indicator Species
29. Creating an Action Plan for Local Ecosystem Protection
30. Review and Assessment: Classification and Ecosystem Connections

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 30 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.