Science
Scientific Investigation, Reasoning, and Logic (All Year)
Skills
- Understanding how to use a classification key
- Collect , record, and report data
- Make a scientific prediction of what may happen
- Making a conclusion based on observations
- Measure, record, identify, collect, and organize observations
Living Systems (August/September)
Essential Understandings
- Understand and describe major components of plant and animal cell including (plant) nucleus, cell wall, cell membrane, vacuole, chloroplasts, and cytoplasm (animal) nucleus, cell, membrane, vacuole, and cytoplasm
- Compare and contrast the characteristics of the kingdoms of organisms
- Group oranisms into categories
Earth Patterns, Cycles, and Change (Oct, Nov)
Essential Understandings
- Changes in the earth over time including the difference between weathering and erosion
- Classification of rocks including sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic
- Layers of the earth and plate tectonics
- Volcanoes and earthquakes (faults, convergent boundaries, divergent boundaries, sliding boundaries)
- Human impact on the earth
Space (December)
Essential Understandings
- Understand the Earth’s rotation and tilt as related to season, length of day, time zones
- Phases of the Moon and how the Moon influences the tides
- Compare and Contrast different planets in the Milky Way Galaxy
- Learn about comets, asteroids, and Meteors
Force, Motion, and Energy (February, March)
Essential Understandings
- Sound and light waves as energy
- Sound – frequency, wavelength, pitch
- How sound travels and difference between animals and human hearing
- Visible spectrum of a light wave
- Relationship between wavelength and color
- Light – transparent, translucent, opaque
- Difference between how light and sound travels
- Why does a rainbow occur?
Earth/Space Science (Water on Earth) (April)
Essential Understandings
- Ocean and ocean floor, understanding concepts as continental shelf, continental slope, continental rise, slope, rise, the abyssal plain, and ocean trenches
- Basic motion of the ocean including waves, tides, and currents
- Ocean currents and how this affects animal populations
- Plant-like Plankton (phytoplankton) and their relationship to the ocean ecosystem and contribution to the Earth’s oxygen levels
Matter (May/June)
Essential Understandings
- Compare and contrast atoms, elements, molecules, and compounds
- Combine two or more compounds to make new compounds
- Mixture and solutions
- Solids to liquids to gases