Australian Curriculum Links & Justification
Science
Science Understanding
Chemical Sciences:
Natural and processed materials have a range of
physical properties that can influence their use
(ACSSU074).
 Students will explore, investigate, and
examine the range of provided materials
and determine their suitability for specific
purposes.
 By evaluating and reflecting upon both their
own protypes and those created by their
peers, student will discover what shapes,
structures and materials provide optimum
strength.
Science as a Human Endeavour
Use and Influence of Science:
Science knowledge helps people to understand the
effect of their actions (ACSUE062).
 Through engaging and discussing ideas
with experienced civil engineers and
engaging in the engineering process
themselves students will develop an
understanding of how engineers use science components, tools and equipment for a range of
to select appropriate materials for building purposes (ACTDEK013).
bridges.
Science Inquiry Skills
Questioning and Predicating:
With guidance, identify questions in familiar
Technology Mathematics
Design and Technologies
Knowledge and Understanding:
Recognise the role of people in design and
technologies occupations and explore factors,
including sustainability that impact on the design of
products, services and environments to meet
community needs (ACTDEK010).
 Through exploring, playing with and testing
the provided materials and investigating
their suitability and appropriateness for use
in constructing a bridge.
Investigate how forces and the properties of
materials affect the behaviour of a product or
system (ACTDEK011).
 Students will problem-solve to design and
construct a bridge that can support weight
and meet the design criteria.
 Through evaluating their prototype and
sharing their ideas with their peers, students
will develop an understanding of how
material choices influenced the load
carrying capacity of the bridge.
Investigate the suitability of materials, systems,
 Through engaging with, exploring and
testing the provided materials students will
develop an understanding of their physical
properties.
Processes and Production Skills:
Measurement and Geometry
Units of Measurement:
Use scaled instruments to measure and compare
lengths, masses, capacities, and temperatures
(ACMMG084).
 To ensure that their designed bridge
prototype meets design criteria
specifications students will need to
accurately measure various components of
their product including the length, height
and width of the bridge.
(ACARA, n.d.-c)
General Capabilities
Literacy
As students engage with the range of provided
multimodal resources and record and document
their ideas throughout this inquiry student’s will
develop their overall literacy capability through
comprehending and composing a range of
multimodal texts. Students will also enhance their
literacy capabilities by developing a knowledge of
a range of new topic scientific language structures
and vocabulary.
Numeracy
As students carry out this scientific inquiry and
measure components of their bridge to ensure it
meets the design criteria specifications, they will
enhance their numeracy capability. Students will be
contexts that can be investigated scientifically and
make predictions based on prior knowledge
(ACSIS064).
 As students engage in the hands-on
problem-based challenge and investigate
possible solutions they will ask questions
and test their own predictions and ideas.
Processing and Analysing Data and Information:
Compare results with predictions, suggesting
possible reasons for findings (ACSIS216).
 As students trail and test their ideas
throughout the engineering design process,
they will compare results with their
predictions and suggest possible reasons for
their findings.
Evaluating:
Reflect on investigations, including whether a test
was fair or not (ACSIS069).
 As students participate in the engineering
and design process and trial and test their
bridge prototype they will evaluate and
reflect on their product and what worked
well and what did not.
Communicating:
Represent and communicate observations, ideas
and findings using formal and informal
representations (ACSIS071)
 Students will informally communicate and
discuss their ideas and results with their
peers throughout the design process.
 After the STEM events student will share
and communicate their ideas and design
Critique needs or opportunities for designing and
explore and test a variety of materials, components,
tools and equipment and the techniques needed to
produce designed solutions (ACTDEP014).
 Through engaging with, exploring and
testing the provided materials and
equipment students will develop an
understanding of their physical properties
and select appropriate joining techniques
for materials to produce functioning
prototypes.
Generate, develop, and communicate design ideas
and decisions using appropriate technical terms and
graphical representation techniques (ACTDEP015).
 Through engaging in the engineering design
process and planning, designing and
creating a prototype bridge students will
generate, develop and communicate design
ideas.
Select and use materials, components, tools,
equipment and techniques and use safe work
practices to make designed solutions
(ACTDEP016).
 Students will be required to demonstrate
safe, responsible and cooperative work
practices when designing and constructing
their bridge prototype
Evaluate design ideas, processes and solutions
based on criteria for success developed with
guidance and including care for the environment
(ACTDEP017).
 As students participate in the engineering
required to draw on their developing, numeracy
skills to collect and measure quantitative data in
formal units.
Critical and Creative Thinking
Students develop critical and creative thinking
skills as they actively participate in this STEM
event. As students plan designs, pose questions,
make predictions, brainstorm, experiment, design,
build, test, and redesign to create solutions through
the design process they draw on and enhance their
critical and creative thinking skills. Scientific
inquiries such as this STEM event promote critical
and creative thinking by encouraging students to be
flexible and open minded as they speculate about
their observations of the world around them.
Personal and Social Capability
As students engage in this authentic STEM event,
they develop personal and social capabilities and
learn how scientific knowledge informs and can be
applied to their daily lives. Scientific inquiry
activities provide students with the opportunity to
develop their skills in communication, goal setting,
interacting with others, collaboration and decision-
making. These experiences also help to expand
student’s capacity to question, solve problems,
explore and display curiosity.
(ACARA, n.d.-d)
 with their class peer and discuss how much
weight their designed prototype could
support in a formal presentation.
(ACARA, n.d.-a)
and design process and trial and test their
bridge prototype they will evaluate and
critique their prototype on how well it
meets the design criteria.
Plan a sequence of production steps when making
designed solutions individually and collaboratively
(ACTDEP018).
 As students participate in the engineering
and design process, they will be required to
manage their own time, resources and
equipment.
(ACARA, n.d.-b)