Grade 2 · Science

Grade 2 science

In grade 2, science starts asking kids to test things: which ball bounces higher, which paper towel soaks up more, what happens when ice warms up. Here is what it covers, where kids usually get stuck, and one way to help.

What your child learns this year

Topics differ a little by province and state, but most grade 2 classes cover several of these:

  • Animals and life cycles. How animals grow and change, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
  • Solids and liquids. How they behave, and how heating and cooling change them.
  • Plants and habitats. What plants need to grow, and the places animals and plants live.
  • Movement. Pushes and pulls, and simple machines like ramps and wheels.
  • Air, water and land. Where water is found, and how wind and water change the land, some fast and some slowly.
  • Doing science. Asking a question, making a fair test and recording what happened.

Where kids usually get stuck

  1. 1Changing two things at once. Testing a new ramp and a new car together, then saying which one made the difference.
  2. 2Thinking melted ice is gone. The water is still there, now as a liquid. Freeze it again and it turns back into ice.
  3. 3Thinking a caterpillar and a butterfly are two different animals. They are the same animal at two stages of one life cycle.

One of Pip's tricks

Change only one thing

Use it when planning a test, or checking whether someone else's test is fair, like which ball bounces highest or which paper towel soaks up the most.

  1. Pick the one thing you want to test, and change only that.
  2. Keep everything else the same: same amounts, same place, same tools, same time.
  3. Measure the result the same way each time, then compare.

Watch it work. Ana wants to know if plants grow taller with more water. Plant A gets a little water and sits by the window. Plant B gets lots of water and sits in a dark closet. Is that fair? No: the water and the light are both different, so if plant B grows less, we can't tell which one caused it. A fair test puts both plants by the window and changes only the water.

Why it works: if only one thing is different between the tests, any difference in the results must come from that one thing.

Try three

Tap a choice to see if it is right, with the reason.

  1. 1.Sam is testing which paper towel soaks up the most water. What must stay the same for every towel?

  2. 2.A chocolate bar melts in the sun. When it cools down it is hard again. Is it still chocolate?

  3. 3.A caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Is the butterfly the same animal?

How Sparkpip fits in

Pip, Sparkpip's tutor, works through questions like these with your child one small step at a time, using ways of thinking like the one above.

Start freeSee how it works

Your curriculum

Sparkpip is built on the grade 2 science curriculum for your province or state. The official pages:

Also: Grade 1 science · Grade 3 science · Grade 2 math · Grade 2 English