What your child learns in Year 9 Science
New curriculum, taught from 2027
Physical science
5 areasMatter: The periodic table and atoms
- Elements, atoms and chemical symbols, and how the periodic table arranges the 118 known elements into groups and periods
- Metals and non-metals, and families with shared properties such as the alkali metals, halogens and noble gases
- How atomic theory was built from evidence, including Rutherford's discovery of the nucleus
- The Bohr model: protons, neutrons and electrons in shells, atomic number and mass number
- Valence electrons and why atoms bond to fill their outer shell
Chemical change: Acids, bases and tests
- Acids, bases and alkalis, and the everyday substances in each group
- The pH scale and indicators such as litmus and universal indicator
- Tests for hydrogen (the pop test), oxygen (glowing splint), carbon dioxide (limewater) and water (cobalt chloride paper)
- Handling corrosive substances safely
Energy: Electric circuits
- Charge, current in amps, voltage in volts and resistance in ohms
- Series and parallel circuits, conductors and insulators
- How energy moves through a circuit, and why some is always lost as heat
- Ways of generating electricity, such as turbines and solar panels, and which suit New Zealand
Motion and forces: Forces, motion and pressure
- Force in newtons, net force, and balanced and unbalanced forces
- Reading and drawing position-time graphs
- Free-body diagrams
- Pressure as force divided by area, from axe blades to tractor tyres
Earth and space: The Solar System
- Stars, planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids and comets
- The order of the planets and distances in astronomical units
- Modelling the Solar System to scale
- How telescopes, probes and landings have built what we know
Biological science
4 areasOrganism diversity: Cells
- Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and what organelles do
- Animal and plant cells, including the cell wall, chloroplasts and vacuole
- Using microscopes to compare cells
Organism diversity: Disease and immunity
- Pathogens and how infectious diseases spread, compared with non-infectious diseases
- The body's defences, white blood cells and antibodies
- How vaccines work, and germ theory from Pasteur and Koch
- Hygiene, quarantine and vaccination, judged on the evidence
Life processes: Diffusion, photosynthesis and respiration
- Diffusion, and how oxygen and carbon dioxide move in and out of cells
- Photosynthesis, and how leaves are adapted for it
- Aerobic respiration: releasing energy from glucose
- Writing testable questions and running experiments on all three
Ecosystems: Ecosystem conditions
- Living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) factors
- Why similar organisms are found in similar conditions
- Mātauranga Māori and ngā tohu o te taiao (signs of the natural world) as ways of reading an ecosystem
- Sampling with quadrats and transects
How is Year 9 maths going?
See the Year 9 maths guideSummarised by Vertex Academy from the New Zealand Curriculum, Science Years 0 to 10 (August 2026), Ministry of Education. Vertex Academy is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ministry of Education.