Turkey Primary School Level 2 (5th Grade) Curriculum - Science

This outlines the Science curriculum for 5th Grade in Turkey, based on the Ministry of National Education (MEB) official curriculum document.

Unit 5: Light and Its World

• Light Propagation: Students observe and illustrate that light emanates from a source in all directions and travels in straight lines.
• Light Reflection: Students observe and illustrate the reflection of light on smooth and rough surfaces. They explain the relationship between the incident ray, reflected ray, and the normal of the surface.
• Light and Matter Interaction: Students classify materials based on their light transmission properties (transparent, translucent, opaque).
• Shadows: Students observe and illustrate how shadows are formed using simple ray diagrams. They investigate the factors affecting shadow formation through experimentation. The concept of penumbra is not covered at this level.

Unit 6: Humans and the Environment

• Biodiversity: Students explore the importance of biodiversity for natural life and provide examples of endangered or extinct plant and animal species in Turkey and globally.
• Human-Environment Interaction: Students discuss the importance of the interaction between humans and the environment. The negative impacts of environmental pollution on human health are addressed. Students propose solutions to an environmental problem in their immediate surroundings or in Turkey.
• Destructive Natural Events: Students explain destructive natural events caused by natural processes, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, landslides, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Detailed explanations are not required at this level.

Unit 7: Electrical Circuit Elements

• Circuit Elements: Students represent the elements of an electrical circuit using symbols. The importance of circuit symbols as a common scientific language is emphasized.
• Factors Affecting Lamp Brightness: Students predict and test the factors affecting the brightness of a light bulb in a simple electrical circuit. Dependent, independent, and controlled variables are explained with examples. Battery count and bulb count are considered as independent variables. Parallel circuits are not covered at this level.