Grade 3 Science Worksheets

Learning Objectives

• Identify common structural forms (arches, beams, frames) and describe how their shapes help them support loads.
• Explain how compressive and bending forces affect different structures in real-world examples.
• Compare span, curvature, and connection types to predict strength and stability.

Learning Objectives

• Explain what a prototype is and why it is tested.
• Identify evidence from testing (strength, fit, stability, and function).
• Match test observations to the intended goal of the design.

Learning Objectives

• Use multiple properties (mass/volume, texture, and shape) to sort and describe materials more precisely.
• Explain how comparing two materials with shared and different properties strengthens evidence-based conclusions.
• Use evidence statements to decide whether they are true or false about sorting materials.

Learning Objectives

• Organize science data in tables and graphs to make patterns easier to see.
• Use evidence from a data representation to support a claim or explanation.
• Explain how changes across trials or conditions can reveal a repeating pattern.

Learning Objectives

• Describe how friction affects the motion of objects
• Explain how surface roughness and material change the strength of friction
• Identify everyday examples where friction helps or slows movement

Learning Objectives

• Compare how annuals, biennials, perennials, and woody plants time germination, flowering, seed set, and dormancy.
• Describe seed banking and the seasonal cues that trigger life cycle transitions and dormancy.
• Explain how environmental variability and human land use (cropping cycles and habitat alteration) can favor certain life histories and affect population persistence.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how fair tests control variables to learn whether a prototype change improves results.
• Identify possible failure modes in a prototype and describe how test outcomes guide design modifications.
• Use recorded observations to compare test results from the original model and an improved version.

Learning Objectives

• Identify patterns in motion by comparing distance and time for an object
• Describe how friction can cause objects to slow down and how slopes can change speed
• Use simple measurements to make predictions about future motion

Learning Objectives

• Explain how friction is a resistive force that opposes motion between touching surfaces.
• Describe how surface texture and material pairings affect how easily objects slide or roll.
• Compare sliding versus rolling and predict which will slow down faster based on friction.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Identify observable features (such as body covering, leaf shape, number of legs, and seed coat type) used to classify organisms.
• Use simple, consistent classification rules that are based on visible traits.
• Compare organisms by describing how they are similar or different using shared observable features.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain that light often travels in straight lines and describe light paths using arrows or lines.
• Identify how openings, edges, and shadows show the direction of light travel.
• Use vocabulary related to light paths (straight line, shadow, opening, blocked).

Learning Objectives

• Explain what a habitat is and how it provides shelter, food, and water for living things.
• Describe how different habitats (forest, pond, field) meet the needs of organisms.
• Identify the role of physical surroundings and resources in helping organisms survive.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Identify common external and internal structures of plants and animals
• Explain how structures help organisms survive, grow, and reproduce
• Use models or drawings to show how body parts are arranged and connected

Learning Objectives

• Define design criteria and explain how they guide engineering decisions.
• Identify success measures and constraints in a design problem.
• Describe trade-offs when multiple requirements compete.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the basic survival needs of plants and describe how plants get them from the environment.
• Describe the basic survival needs of animals and give examples of how animals meet those needs.
• Compare how different body structures help plants and animals access the same basic needs.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Compare rocks and soil using appearance and physical properties.
• Explain how rock and soil can be separated or changed by pressure and handling.
• Describe how soil is made from smaller particles and organic matter.

Learning Objectives

• Identify major flower parts (sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils) and explain what each part does in reproduction
• Describe how pollen production, stigma reception, and fertilization lead to seed formation
• Compare wind pollination and animal pollination and explain how flower traits help attract pollinators+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how group behaviors can reduce the risk of harm to individual animals during predator attacks
• Identify examples of collective defense such as schooling, flocking, watchful attention, and protective clustering
• Use evidence from a passage to determine the main idea and to answer questions about survival strategies

Learning Objectives

• Explain how evidence is used to choose the best fit solution based on agreed-upon criteria for success.
• Describe tradeoffs by connecting improvements in one criterion to possible effects on another criterion.
• Acknowledge constraints (such as material limits and rules) and explain how they shape a design choice.

Learning Objectives

• Identify observable inherited traits in plants and animals and describe how they pass from parents to offspring.
• Use evidence from multiple generations to explain why offspring resemble their parents.
• Distinguish between shared traits in a group and differences between individual organisms.

Learning Objectives

• Explain what unbalanced forces are and how they change an object’s motion
• Identify how pushes and pulls in opposite directions affect speed and direction
• Use evidence from simple examples to describe cause and effect in motion

Learning Objectives

• Explain how offspring inherit traits from parents
• Describe how individuals in a population can show variation in inherited traits
• Distinguish inherited traits from traits influenced by the environment+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Identify evidence that suggests a chemical change may occur when materials are mixed
• Compare the properties of a new product to the expected properties of the starting materials
• Use observations like color, texture, and heat to explain how mixing can create new substances+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how temperature changes can affect evaporation and the formation of clouds.
• Describe how precipitation (rain and snow) helps show wet and dry weather patterns.
• Compare temperature and rainfall across months to understand seasonal changes.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how mixture properties reflect the contributions of each component
• Identify evidence that components keep their own properties in a mixture
• Describe observable changes in mixtures without creating a new substance+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Identify the main stages in a life cycle model and describe their order.
• Explain how stage characteristics help an organism meet survival needs.
• Compare life cycle models by describing similarities (repeating pattern) and differences (stage length or transitions).+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how inherited traits help offspring resemble their parents within a species.
• Describe how inherited traits can show variation among offspring.
• Compare one visible trait across a family line and identify the pattern of resemblance.

Learning Objectives

• Describe how thermal energy causes matter to change state (solid, liquid, gas).
• Identify state-change processes such as melting, freezing, evaporation, and condensation.
• Explain how state changes can be observed through shape and whether matter flows.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how heating and cooling can change a material’s state (solid, liquid, gas).
• Describe observable properties that change during melting, freezing, evaporating, and condensing.
• Use evidence from state changes to argue that the material can remain the same even when its state changes.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how adding forces (net force) affects an object's motion.
• Determine whether opposite forces cancel or add by comparing their directions and strengths.
• Use everyday examples (pushes, tug-of-war, stacked pushes) to predict motion changes.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how scientific models represent ideas that are hard to see, measure, or predict
• Use models to describe relationships and cause-and-effect connections
• Choose evidence and observations that best support or improve a model

Learning Objectives

• Differentiate between weather and climate using appropriate time scales.
• Identify examples of weather events versus long-term climate patterns.
• Explain why a single day or storm does not automatically change a region’s climate.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how vibration rate affects perceived pitch (higher rate = higher pitch).
• Describe how vibration strength relates to loudness.
• Use evidence from observations to connect sound characteristics to vibrating motion.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how water changes form during the water cycle (vapor, liquid, solid).
• Describe how cooling and heating affect evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
• Identify connections between clouds and Earth’s surface in the water cycle.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how changing sunlight across the year leads to predictable seasonal patterns in temperature and precipitation.
• Describe how atmospheric processes connect longer-term seasonal trends to typical weather outcomes.
• Distinguish predictable seasonal patterns from short-term weather events that can vary.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how weather can change from day to day even within the same season.
• Describe how precipitation and temperature may arrive earlier or later than expected.
• Differentiate between weather (day-to-day conditions) and climate (typical patterns over time).+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how pushes and pulls affect an object’s motion.
• Determine how net force changes speed and/or direction.
• Use the idea of zero net force to describe when motion stays the same.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the first steps of the engineering design process: recognizing a need, asking questions, and defining a problem.
• Describe how engineers propose solutions using available materials and consider constraints such as size, time, and function.
• Use engineering design vocabulary (need, define, constraints, solution, function) to answer science questions.

Learning Objectives

• Explain that Earth’s rotation on its axis causes day and night.
• Identify which side of Earth faces the Sun during daytime and which side faces away during nighttime.
• Describe how the daily light pattern repeats regularly because Earth keeps rotating.

Learning Objectives

• Explain that living things grow through predictable life cycle stages.
• Identify common stages such as egg, juvenile, and adult in familiar organisms.
• Describe how life cycle patterns connect one generation to the next.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the difference between a claim and evidence
• Use evidence to support a reasoning statement that answers a question
• Recognize patterns in observations over time and across comparisons+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how magnets interact through forces that act at a distance.
• Distinguish magnetic forces from contact forces such as pushing and friction.
• Describe how magnetic interaction strength changes with distance and pole orientation.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Describe how moisture, corrosion, freeze-thaw cycles, and ultraviolet (UV) light can weaken materials over time.
• Explain how material durability affects strength and stiffness in structures.
• Identify maintenance actions and protective treatments that extend a structure’s reasonable lifespan.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Generate multiple distinct solution options for the same design problem
• Explain how different structures and materials can affect outcomes like stability and impact resistance
• Use criteria (constraints and desired outcomes) to evaluate and improve solution ideas

Learning Objectives

• Explain how intended function, load paths, and support locations affect the strength and stability of simple structures.
• Describe how material compatibility and connection quality influence how loads transfer through a structure.
• Use simple evaluation strategies to compare expected forces with material limits and identify common failure modes.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how group living can help animals survive using observable traits and ecological context.
• Describe how organisms in a group may share resources such as food, shelter, or protection.
• Use evidence-based reasoning to support claims about cooperation and competition in nature.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Identify how load bearing structures keep their shape when forces push or pull on them.
• Explain how design features like triangles, wider bases, and cross-bracing increase stability.
• Use testing evidence (bending, alignment, and support) to improve a structure design.

Learning Objectives

• Represent local weather observations (temperature, precipitation, and cloud cover) using simple graphs and tables
• Identify daily and seasonal patterns in weather data across weeks and months
• Interpret graphical information to describe changes in weather variability and precipitation trends+ Show more