Physical Science:  Waves & Electromagnetic Spectrum, Electricity & Magnetism

  Life Science:         Cell System, Reproduction & Growth, Ecosystems, Populations,

                                     Communities & Ecosystems

Earth & Space Science:   Distribution of Natural Resources, Human Impact on the Environment

Essential Leaning Goals

Students who successfully complete proficient in the following areas:

• Students will be able to conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells; either one cell or many different numbers and types of cells.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.
• Students will be able to sue argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.
• Students will be able to gather and synthesize information that sensory receptors respond to stimuli by sending messages to the brain for immediate behavior or storage as memories.
• Students will be able to construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.
• Students will be able to develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
• Students will be able to analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organism and populations of organisms I the ecosystem.
• Students will be able to develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.
• Students will be able to construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
• Students will be able to construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.
• Students will be able to evaluate competing design solutions form maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
• Students will be able to use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants respectively.
• Students will be able to construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.
• Students will be able to construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals’’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
• Students will be able to use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.
• Students will be able to construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth’s mineral, energy, and groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.
• Students will be able to apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
• Students will be able to construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.
• Students will be able to ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
• Students will be able to conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
• Students will be able to construct and interpret graphical displays of data to describe the relationships of kinetic energy to the mass of an object and to the speed of an object.
• Students will be able to develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.
• Students will be able to use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves that includes how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave.
• Students will be able to develop and us a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials.
• Students will be able to integrate qualitative scientific and technical information to support the claim that digitized signals are a more reliable way to encode and transmit information than analog signals.
• Students will be able to define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
• Students will be able to evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
• Students will be able to analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.

• Students will be able to develop a model to generate data for interactive testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.

Physical Science:            Atoms & the Periodic Table, Chemical Reactions, Forces & Motion

Life Science:                   Genes & Heredity, Natural Selection & Change Over Time

Earth & Space Science:  History of Earth, Energy in the Atmosphere & Ocean, Climate,

                                              Earth-Sun-Moon System, Solar System & the Universe

Essential Learning Goals

Students who successfully complete proficiency in the following areas:

• Students will be able to develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
• Students will be able to gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.
• Students will be able to plan and conduct an investigation to demonstrate that mixtures are combinations of substances.
• Students will be able to analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass is conserved.
• Students will be able to undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy during a chemical and/or physical process.
• Students will be able to apply Newton’s Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.
• Students will be able to plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.
• Students will be able to construct and present arguments using evidence to support the claim that gravitational interactions are attractive and depend on the masses of interacting objects and the distance between them.
• Students will be able to develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to explain why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects on the structure and function of an organism.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe how asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.
• Students will be able to gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
• Students will be able to analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operate today as in the past.
• Students will be able to apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.
• Students will be able to analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns of similarities in the embryological development across multiple species to identify relationships not evident in the fully formed anatomy.
• Students will be able to construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
• Students will be able to use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model of the Earth-Sun-moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of lunar phases, eclipses of the Sun and moon, and seasons.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.
• Students will be able to analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.
• Students will be able to construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth’s 4.6 billion-year-old history.
• Students will be able to develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.
• Students will be able to ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
• Students will be able to define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
• Students will be able to evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
• Students will be able to analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
• Students will be able to develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.