Staff guide · The roof-garden puddle
Use only after the own attempt. These local criteria are examples of evidence, not an official grade or a unique required phrasing.
Complete selected source
Made-up story. At a roof garden, a shallow puddle is drawn as liquid water at the first review. Later the same marked patch has less visible liquid water. The story does not record a measured amount, a drain check or how much water soaked into the surface. Tali wants a possible explanation. A separate small water-cycle sketch shows ocean liquid, water vapour in air, cloud droplets and water falling from the cloud to land. Its arrows have no times attached.
Q1
Prompt: What could some liquid water become? Name the change.
Minimum meaningful evidence: Identifies liquid water becoming water vapour and names evaporation.
Worked example: Some liquid water could become invisible water vapour through evaporation.
Next teaching: If the state direction is unclear, use new liquid/vapour cards and an unassessed damp-paper caption.
Partial national link: AC9S4U02
Actual response / support / next appointment: ______
Q2
Prompt: Can we see water vapour itself?
Minimum meaningful evidence: Distinguishes invisible gas from visible liquid droplets.
Worked example: Water vapour is invisible. A drawn cloud/droplet is not the gas itself.
Next teaching: Contrast labelled empty-air space with a drawn tiny liquid drop, without requiring a drawing.
Partial national link: AC9S4U02
Actual response / support / next appointment: ______
Q3
Prompt: Which change forms the sketch's cloud droplets? Which process takes water from the cloud to land?
Minimum meaningful evidence: Identifies condensation for vapour-to-droplets and precipitation for cloud-to-land falling water.
Worked example: Condensation forms the shown droplets; precipitation takes water from the cloud to land.
Next teaching: Revisit the two named link directions with a different sky/sea sketch.
Partial national link: AC9S4U02
Actual response / support / next appointment: ______
Q4
Prompt: What can't this puddle story tell us? Choose one gap.
Minimum meaningful evidence: Identifies a relevant unsupported amount/cause/timing rather than asserting certainty.
Worked example: It does not tell us exactly how much evaporated or soaked/drained, or when the model path happens.
Next teaching: Separate one supplied visible clue from a possible explanation and one missing measurement.
Partial national link: AC9S4I01
Actual response / support / next appointment: ______
Use after Day 34. Preserve the earlier response and what was subsequently taught. New complete stories have familiar taught process/representation components; do not claim all-unseen answers, matched statistical difficulty or automatic improvement. Fiction/source reasoning does not establish actual measurement or conduct.
Modified from Year 4 Science alignment, standard elaborations and Years 3–4 techniques and conditions, © State of Queensland (QCAA) 2023, covered CC BY 4.0 with exceptions. Our task criteria are original; these are not official A–E bands. Actual folio and on-balance professional judgment remain necessary.