1. NATURE OF SCIENCE (NOS) |
By the end of Grade 6, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
By the end of Grade 8, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
S:SPS2:6:1.1 Explain that scientists do not pay much attention to claims about how something works unless they are backed up with evidence that can be confirmed with a logical argument.
S:SPS2:6:1.2 Describe how results of similar and repeated investigations may vary and suggest possible explanations for variations.
S:SPS2:6:1.3 Explain that sometimes similar investigations get different results because of unexpected differences in the things being investigated, the methods used, or the circumstances in which the investigation is carried out, and sometimes just because of uncertainties of observations.
S:SPS2:6:1.4 Realize that if more than one variable changes at the same time in an experiment, the outcome of the experiment may not be clearly attributable to any one of the variables. |
S:SPS2:8:1.1 Describe how scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected evidence.
S:SPS2:8:1.2 Realize that when similar investigations give different results, the scientific challenge is to judge whether the differences are trivial or significant, and this often requires more investigations.
S:SPS2:8:1.3 Realize that knowledge, based on science, is subject to modification as new information challenges prevailing theories and as a new theory leads to looking at old observations in a new way.
S:SPS2:8:1.4 Provide examples that show how some scientific knowledge is very old and yet is still applicable today.
S:SPS2:8:1.5 Recognize that some matters cannot be examined usefully in a scientific way, such as those matters that by their nature cannot be tested objectively and those that are essentially matters of morality.
S:SPS2:8:1.6 Give examples of how science can sometimes be used to inform ethical decisions by identifying the likely consequences of particular actions but cannot be used to establish that some action is either moral or immoral. |
2. SYSTEMS AND ENERGY (SAE) |
By the end of Grade 6, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
By the end of Grade 8, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
S:SPS2:6:2.1 Recognize that thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others.
S:SPS2:6:2.2 Discover that collections of pieces (e.g., powders, marbles, sugar cubes or wooden blocks) may have properties that the individual pieces do not.
S:SPS2:6:2.3 Estimate or predict the effect that making a change in one part of the system will have on other parts, and on the system as a whole.
S:SPS2:6:2.4 Compare a variety of forms of energy, including heat, light, sound, mechanical, electrical, and chemical energy.
S:SPS2:6:2.5 Demonstrate how energy can be transformed from one form to another (e.g., from electrical energy to heat, light or mechanical energy). |
S:SPS2:8:2.1 Understand that any system is usually connected to other systems, both internally and externally; thus a system may be thought of as containing subsystems and as being a subsystem of a larger system.
S:SPS2:8:2.2 Analyze how the output of one part of a system, which can include materials, energy or information, can become the input to other parts.
S:SPS2:8:2.3 Realize that as the complexity of any system increases, gaining an understanding of it depends increasingly on summaries (such as averages and ranges) and on descriptions of typical examples of that system.
S:SPS2:8:2.4 Explain that when energy is transformed or converted from one type to another, there is no net loss of energy.
S:SPS2:8:2.5 Describe how objects and substances can store energy (e.g., a battery, food, gasoline). |
3. MODELS AND SCALE (MAS) |
By the end of Grade 6, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
By the end of Grade 8, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
S:SPS2:6:3.1 Understand that models are often used to think about processes that happen too slowly, too quickly, or on too small a scale to observe directly; or that are too vast to be changed deliberately; or that are potentially dangerous.
S:SPS2:6:3.2 Analyze how finding out the biggest and smallest values of something are often as revealing as knowing what the usual value is. |
S:SPS2:8:3.1 Demonstrate how mathematical models can be displayed on a computer and then modified to see what happens.
S:SPS2:8:3.2 Know that different models can be used to represent the same thing; what kind of model is used and how complex it should be depends on its purpose; and the usefulness of a model is one of the instances in which intuition and creativity come into play in science, mathematics and engineering.
S:SPS2:8:3.3 Discover how properties of systems that depend on volume, such as capacity and weight change, change out of proportion to properties that depend on area, such as strength or surface processes.
S:SPS2:8:3.4 Recognize that as the complexity of any system increases, gaining an understanding increasingly depends on summaries (such as averages and ranges) and on descriptions of typical examples of that system. |
4. PATTERNS OF CHANGE (POC) |
By the end of Grade 6, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
By the end of Grade 8, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
S:SPS2:6:4.1 Understand that things change in steady, repetitive, or irregular ways, or sometimes in more than one way at the same time; often the best way to tell which kinds of change are happening is to make a table or graph of measurements.
S:SPS2:6:4.2 Discover how a system may stay the same because nothing is happening or because things are happening that exactly balance each other out. |
S:SPS2:8:4.1 Analyze how physical and biological systems tend to change until they become stable and then stay that way unless their surroundings change.
S:SPS2:8:4.2 Recognize how many systems contain feedback mechanisms that serve to keep changes within specified limits.
S:SPS2:8:4.3 Realize that symbolic equations can be used to summarize how the quantity of something changes over time or in response to other changes.
S:SPS2:8:4.4 Explain how symmetry (or the lack of it) may determine properties of many objects, from molecules and crystals to organisms and designed structures.
S:SPS2:8:4.5 Realize that cycles, such as the seasons or body temperature, can be described by their cycle length or frequency, what their highest and lowest values are, and when those values occur; different cycles range from many thousand years down to less than a billionth of a second. |
5. FORM AND FUNCTION (FAF) |
By the end of Grade 6, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
By the end of Grade 8, all students will apply skills from previous grades and… |
S:SPS2:6:5.1 Describe the structure and function of organs.
S:SPS2:6:5.2 Diagram and label the structure of the primary components of representative organs in plants and animals.
S:SPS2:6:5.3 Investigate the relationship between various landforms and wind currents. |
S:SPS2:8:5.1 Describe the relationship between structure and function of organ systems in plants and animals.
S:SPS2:8:5.2 Describe the structure and function of various organ systems (i.e., digestion, respiration, circulation, nervous, protection and support) and how these systems contribute to homeostasis of the organism.
S:SPS2:8:5.3 Compare the structure and function of organ systems in one organism to the structure and function in another organism. |
