Year 10 · Science
WA Year 10 Science: what your child covers this year
Year 10 Science in Western Australia is the last year of a single combined Science subject before it splits into Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Human Biology in Year 11. Each strand this year is effectively a preview of one of those courses: genetics and evolution anticipate Biology and Human Biology, reaction rates and energy anticipate Chemistry, and motion and forces anticipate Physics. How a student finds each strand this year is genuinely informative for subject selection — a student who finds the physics content easy and the genetics content a slog is telling you something real about which Year 11 sciences will suit them.
Biological sciences
Heredity and evolution — the mechanics of how traits are passed on and how species change.
DNA, genes and chromosomes
Explaining the relationship between DNA, genes and chromosomes, and how this structure carries genetic information.
Where students get stuck: Confusing the three levels of the hierarchy — DNA is the molecule, a gene is a section of it, a chromosome is a packaged bundle of genes. Students who can't order these three struggle with everything built on top of them.
Genetics and inheritance
Using models such as Punnett squares to predict the probability of inherited traits in offspring.
Where students get stuck: Treating a Punnett square as a diagram to fill in mechanically rather than a probability tool. The genuine skill is interpreting what a 3:1 ratio actually means for a real family, not just producing the ratio.
Evolution by natural selection
Explaining how natural selection acting on variation within a population can lead to evolution over time.
Where students get stuck: The single most common error in this topic: describing evolution as something an individual organism does ("the giraffe stretched its neck") rather than a change in a population's traits over generations. Worth correcting explicitly and early.
Chemical sciences
Reactions, examined in more mechanistic detail than Year 9's introduction.
Types of chemical reactions
Classifying chemical reactions by type and using patterns to predict the products of a reaction.
Rates of reaction
Explaining how changing factors — temperature, concentration, surface area — affects how quickly a reaction proceeds.
Where students get stuck: Explaining a faster reaction rate by saying particles "have more energy" without connecting it to collision frequency and the proportion of collisions with enough energy to react. Both parts of that explanation are needed for full marks.
Exothermic and endothermic reactions
Distinguishing exothermic reactions, which release energy, from endothermic reactions, which absorb it.
Earth and space sciences
Zooming out from the planet to the universe it sits in.
The Big Bang and how the universe formed
Describing the formation of stars, galaxies and planetary systems, and how space exploration has contributed to understanding the universe's formation and evolution.
Physical sciences
Motion and forces, tied together with the mathematical precision Year 9 didn't yet require.
Speed, velocity and acceleration
Distinguishing speed from velocity, and calculating acceleration as the rate of change of velocity.
Where students get stuck: Treating speed and velocity as synonyms. Velocity includes direction; a car going around a roundabout at constant speed has changing velocity, and that distinction is exactly what separates a pass from a strong mark in this topic.
Newton's laws of motion
Applying Newton's three laws to explain and predict how objects move under the forces acting on them.
Where students get stuck: The third law — action and reaction — is the one that gets misapplied. Students describe the paired forces as acting on the same object and cancelling out, when they actually act on two different objects and don't cancel at all.
Science inquiry
The most sophisticated inquiry expectations of the P-10 curriculum, in preparation for senior science.
Science, ethics and global systems
Examining how advances in science, technology and engineering are interconnected globally, and the ethical and societal dimensions of scientific research.
How it is assessed
- School-based assessment. There is no external Science exam in Year 10.
- Investigation reports at this level are expected to include appropriate sample sizes and a comment on the validity and reliability of the method, not just the results.
- Reporting is against the WA achievement standard for Year 10 Science, the last year before Science splits into separate ATAR and General subjects.
Common questions
- Has WA Year 10 Science changed recently?
- WA schools moved to the revised Western Australian Curriculum for Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences and Technologies in 2026. If you are looking at an older topic list, or a resource written for another state, some of it no longer matches what is taught here.
- How does Year 10 Science relate to choosing ATAR sciences for Year 11?
- Directly. This is the last year of combined Science, and each strand previews a specific Year 11 course — genetics and evolution preview Biology and Human Biology, reaction chemistry previews Chemistry, and motion and forces previews Physics. Schools generally use Year 10 performance in each strand, not just an overall grade, to advise on which ATAR sciences a student is ready for.
- My child enjoys science generally but hasn't picked a favourite strand. Is that a problem for subject selection?
- No — plenty of students go into Year 11 undecided between two sciences. What matters more is being honest about which strands were a genuine struggle versus which were merely less interesting, since the first is a real signal and the second usually isn't.
Related year levels
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Start learning for freeWritten from the current Western Australian Curriculum. Requirements change — check SCSA for the official syllabus.