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ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP
ABILITIES NECESSARY TO DO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
- Identify questions that can be answered through
scientific investigations
- Design and conduct a scientific investigation
- Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather,
analyze, and interpret data
- Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions,
and models using evidence
- Think critically and logically to make the
relationships between evidence and explanations
- Recognize and analyze alternative explanations
and predictions
- Communicate scientific procedures and
explanations
- Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific
inquiry
ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
- Different kinds of questions suggest different
kinds of scientific investigations. Some
investigations involve observing and describing
objects, organisms, or events; some involve
collecting specimens; some involve experiments;
some involve seeking more information; some
involve discovery of new objects and phenomena;
and some involve making models.
- Current scientific knowledge and understanding
guide scientific investigations. Different
scientific domains employ different methods, core
theories, and standards to advance scientific
knowledge and understanding.
- Mathematics is important in all aspects of
scientific inquiry.
- Technology used to gather data enhances accuracy
and allows scientists to analyze and quantify
results of investigations.
- Scientific explanations emphasize evidence, have
logically consistent arguments, and use
scientific principles, models, and theories. The
scientific community accepts and uses such
explanations until displaced by better scientific
ones. When such displacement occurs, science
advances.
- Science advances through legitimate skepticism.
Asking questions and querying other scientists'
explanations is part of scientific inquiry.
Scientists evaluate the explanations proposed by
other scientists by examining evidence, comparing
evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing
out statements that go beyond the evidence, and
suggesting alternative explanations for the same
observations.
- Scientific investigations sometimes result in new
ideas and phenomena for study, generate new
methods or procedures for an investigation, or
develop new technologies to improve the
collection of data. All of these results can lead
to new investigations.
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PROPERTIES AND CHANGES OF PROPERTIES
IN MATTER
- A substance has characteristic properties, such
as density, a boiling point, and solubility, all
of which are independent of the amount of the
sample. A mixture of substances often can be
separated into the original substances using one
or more of the characteristic properties.
- Substances react chemically in characteristic
ways with other substances to form new substances
(compounds) with different characteristic
properties. In chemical reactions, the total mass
is conserved. Substances often are placed in
categories or groups if they react in similar
ways; metals is an example of such a group.
- Chemical elements do no break down during normal
laboratory reactions involving such treatments as
heating, with acids. There are more than 100
knows elements that combine in a multitude of
ways to produce compounds, which account for the
living and nonliving substances that we
encounter.
MOTIONS AND FORCES
- The motion of an object can be described by its
position, direction of motion, and speed. That
motion can be measured and represented on a
graph.
- An object that is not being subjected to a force
will continue to move at a constant speed and in
a straight line.
- If more than one force acts on an object along a
straight line, then the forces will reinforce or
cancel one another, depending on their direction
and magnitude. Unbalanced forces will cause
changes in the speed or direction of an object's
motion.
TRANSFER OF ENERGY
- Energy is a property of many substances and is
associated with heat, light, electricity,
mechanical motion, sound, nuclei, and the nature
of a chemical. Energy is transferred in many
ways.
- Heat moves in predictable ways, flowing from
warmer objects to cooler ones, until both reach
the same temperature.
- Light interacts with matter by transmission
(including refraction), absorption, or scattering
(including reflection). To see an object, light
from that object – emitted by or scattered
from it – must enter the eye.
- Electrical circuits provide a means of
transferring electrical energy when heat, light,
sound, and chemical changes are produced.
- In most chemical and nuclear reactions, energy is
transferred into or out of a system. Heat, light,
mechanical motion, or electricity might all be
involved in such transfers.
- The sun is a major source of energy for changes
on the earth's surface. The sun loses energy by
emitting light. A tiny fraction of that light
reaches the earth, transferring energy from the
sun to the earth. The sun's energy arrives as
light with a range of wavelengths, consisting of
visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet
radiation.
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STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN LIVING
SYSTEMS
- Living systems at all levels of organization
demonstrate the complementary nature of structure
and function. Important levels of organization
for structure and function include cells, organs,
tissues, organ systems, whole organisms, and
ecosystems.
- All organisms are composed of cells – the
fundamental unit of life. Most organisms are
single cells; other organisms, including humans,
are multi-cellular.
- Cells carry on the many functions needed to
sustain life. They grow and divide, thereby
producing more cells. This requires that they
take in nutrients, which they use to provide
energy for the work that cells do and to make the
materials that a cell or an organism needs.
- Specialized cells perform specialized functions
in multi-cellular organisms. Groups of
specialized cells cooperate to form a tissue,
such as a muscle. Different tissues are in turn
grouped together to form larger functional units,
called organs. Each type of cell, tissue, and
organs has a distinct structure and set of
functions that serve the organism as a whole.
- The human organism has systems for digestion,
respiration, reproduction, circulation,
excretion, movement, control, and coordination,
and for protection from disease. These systems
interact with one another.
- Disease is a breakdown in structures or functions
of an organism. Some diseases are the result of
intrinsic failures of the system. Others are the
result of damage by infection by other organisms.
REPRODUCTION AND HEREDITY
- Reproduction is a characteristic of all living
systems; because no individual organism lives
forever, reproduction is essential to the
continuation of every species. Some organisms
reproduce asexually. Other organisms reproduce
sexually.
- In many species, including humans, females
produce eggs and males produce sperm. Plants also
reproduce sexually – the egg and sperm are
produced in the flowers of flowering plants. An
egg and sperm unite to begin development of a new
individual. That new individual receives genetic
information from its mother (via the egg) and its
father (via the sperm). Sexually produced
offspring never are identical to either of their
parents.
- Hereditary information is contained in genes,
located in the chromosomes of each cell. Each
gene carries a single unit of information. An
inherited trait of an individual can be
determined by one or by many genes, and a single
gene can influence more than one trait. A human
cell contains many thousands of different genes.
- The characteristics of an organism can be
described in terms of a combination of traits.
Some traits are inherited and others result from
interactions with the environment.
REGULATION AND BEHAVIOR
- All organisms must be able to obtain and use
resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable
internal conditions while living in a constantly
changing external environment.
- Regulation of an organism's internal environment
involves sensing the internal environment and
changing physiological activities to keep
conditions within the range required to survive.
- Behavior is one kind of response an organism can
make to an internal or environmental stimulus. A
behavioral response requires coordination and
communication at many levels, including cells,
organ systems, and whole organisms. Behavioral
response is a set of actions determined in part
by heredity and in part from experience.
- An organism's behavior evolves through adaptation
to its environment. How a species moves, obtains
food, reproduces, and responds to danger are
based in the species' evolutionary history.
POPULATIONS AND ECOSYSTEMS
- A population consists of all individuals of a
species that occur together at a given place and
time. All populations living together and the
physical factors with which they interact compose
an ecosystem.
- Populations of organisms can be categorized by
the function they serve in an ecosystem. Plants
and some microorganisms are producers – they
make their own food. All animals, including
humans, are consumers, which obtain food by
eating other organisms. Decomposers, primarily
bacteria and fungi, are consumers that use waste
materials and dead organisms for food. Food webs
identify the relationships among producers,
consumers, and decomposers in an ecosystem.
- For ecosystems, the major source of energy is
sunlight. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight
is transferred by producers into chemical energy
through photosynthesis. That energy then passes
from organism to organism in food webs.
- The number of organisms an ecosystem can support
depends on the resources available and abiotic
factors, such as quantity of light and water,
range of temperatures, and soil composition.
Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and
no disease or predators, populations (including
humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of
resources and other factors, such as predation
and climate, limit the growth of populations in
specific niches in the ecosystem.
DIVERSITY AND ADAPTATIONS OF ORGANISMS
- Millions of species of animals, plants, and
microorganisms are alive today. Although
different species might look dissimilar, the
unity among organisms becomes apparent from an
analysis of internal structures, the similarity
of their chemical processes, and the evidence of
common ancestry.
- Biological evolution accounts for the diversity
of species developed through gradual processes
over many generations. Species acquire many of
their unique characteristics through biological
adaptation, which involves the selection of
naturally occurring variations in populations.
Biological adaptations include changes in
structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance
survival and reproductive success in a particular
environment.
- Extinction of a species occurs when the
environment changes and the adaptive
characteristics of a species are insufficient to
allow its survival. Fossils indicate that many
organisms that lived long ago are extinct.
Extinction of species is common; most of the
species that have lived on the earth no longer
exist.
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STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH SYSTEM
- The solid earth is layered with lithosphere; hot,
convecting mantle; and dense, metallic core.
- Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents
and oceans constantly move at rates of
centimeters per year in response to movements in
the mantle. Major geological events, such as
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain
building, result from these plate motions.
- Land forms are the result of a combination of
constructive and destructive forces. Constructive
forces include crustal deformation, volcanic
eruption, and deposition of sediment, while
destructive forces include weathering and
erosion.
- Some changes in the solid earth can be described
as the “rock cycle”. Old rocks at the
earth's surface weather, forming sediments that
are buried, then compacted, heated, and often
re-crystallized into new rock. Eventually, those
new rocks may be brought to the surface by the
forces that drive plate motions, and the rock
cycle continues.
- Soil consists of weathered rocks and decomposed
organic material from dead plants, animals, and
bacteria. Soils are often found in the layers,
with each having a different chemical composition
and texture.
- Water, which covers the majority of the earth's
surface, circulates through the crust, oceans,
and atmosphere in what is known as the
“water cycle”. Water evaporates from
the earth's surface, rises and cools as it moves
to higher elevations, condenses as rain or snow,
and falls to the surface where it collects in
lakes, oceans, soil, and in rocks underground.
- Water is a solvent. As it passes through the
water cycle it dissolves minerals and gases and
carries them to the oceans.
- The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen,
and trace gases that include water vapor. The
atmosphere has different properties at different
elevations.
- Clouds, formed by the condensation of water
vapor, affect weather and climate.
- Global patterns of atmospheric movement influence
local weather. Oceans have a major effect on
climate, because water in the oceans holds a
large amount of heat.
- Living organisms have played many roles in the
earth system, including affecting the composition
of the atmosphere, producing some types of rocks,
and contributing to the weathering of rocks.
EARTH'S HISTORY
- The earth processes we see today, including
erosion, movement of lithospheric plates, and
changes in atmospheric composition, are similar
to those that occurred in the past. Earth history
is also influenced by occasional catastrophes,
such as the impact of an asteroid or comet.
- Fossils provide important evidence of how life
and environmental conditions have changed.
EARTH IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
- The earth is the third planet from the sun in a
system that includes the moon, the sun, either
other planets and their moons, and smaller
objects, such as asteroids and comets. The sun,
an average star, is the central and largest body
in the solar system.
- Most objects in the solar system are in regular
and predictable motion. Those motions explain
such phenomena as the day, the year, phases of
the moon, and eclipses.
- Gravity is the force that keeps planets in orbit
around the sun and governs the rest of the motion
in the solar system. Gravity alone holds us to
the earth's surface and explains the phenomena of
the tides.
- The sun is the major source of energy for
phenomena on the earth's surface, such as growth
of plants, winds, ocean currents, and the water
cycle. Seasons result from variations in the
amount of the sun's energy hitting the surface,
due to the tilt of the earth's rotation on its
axis and the length of the day.
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ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP AN
UNDERSTANDING OF THE ABILITIES OF TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN
- Identify appropriate problems for technological
design
- Design a solution or product
- Implement a proposed design
- Evaluate completed technological designs or
products
- Communicate the process of technological design
ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- Scientific inquiry and technological design have
similarities and differences. Scientists propose
explanations for questions about the natural
world, and engineers propose solutions relating
to human problems, needs, and aspirations.
Technological solutions are temporary;
technologies exist within nature and so they
cannot contravene physical or biological
principles; technological solutions have side
effects; and technologies cost, carry risks, and
provide benefits.
- Many different people in different cultures have
made and continue to make contributions to
science and technology.
- Science and technology are reciprocal. Science
helps drive technology, as it addresses questions
that demand more sophisticated instruments and
provides principles for better instrumentation
and technique. Technology is essential to
science, because it provides instruments and
techniques that enable observations of objects
and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due
to factors such as quantity, distance, location,
size, and speed. Technology also provides tools
for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.
- Perfectly designed solutions do not exist. All
technological solutions have tradeoffs, such as
safety, cost, efficiency, and appearance.
Engineers often build in back-up systems to
provide safety. Risk is part of living in a
highly technological world. Reducing risk often
results in new technology.
- Technological designs have constraints. Some
constraints are unavoidable, for example,
properties of materials, or effects of weather
and friction; other constraints limit choices in
the design, for example, environmental
protection, human safety, and aesthetics.
- Technological solutions have intended benefits
and unintended consequences. Some consequences
can be predicted, others cannot.
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PERSONAL HEALTH
- Regular exercise is important to the maintenance
and improvement of health. The benefits of
physical fitness include maintaining healthy
weight, having energy and strength for routine
activities, good muscle tone, bone strength,
strong heart/lung systems, and improved mental
health. Personal exercise, especially developing
cardiovascular endurance, is the foundation of
physical fitness.
- The potential for accidents and the existence of
hazards imposes the need for injury prevention.
Safe living involves the development and use of
safety precautions and the recognition of risk in
personal decisions. Injury prevention has
personal and social dimensions.
- The use of tobacco increases the risk of illness.
Students should understand the influence of
short-tem social and psychological factors that
lead to tobacco use, and the possible long-term
detrimental effects of smoking and chewing
tobacco.
- Alcohol and other drugs are often abused
substances. Such drugs change how the body
functions and can lead to addiction.
- Food provides energy and nutrients for growth and
development. Nutrition requirements vary with
body weight, age, sex, activity, and body
functioning.
- Sex drive is a natural human function that
requires understanding. Sex is also a prominent
means of transmitting diseases. The diseases can
be prevented through a variety of precautions.
- Natural environments may contain substances (for
example, radon and lead) that are harmful to
human beings. Maintaining environmental health
involves establishing or monitoring quality
standards related to use of soil, water, and air.
POPULATIONS, RESOURCES, AND ENVIRONMENTS
- When an area becomes overpopulated, the
environment will become degraded due to the
increased use of resources.
- Causes of environmental degradation and resource
depletion vary from region to region and from
country to country.
NATURAL HAZARDS
- Internal and external processes of the earth
system cause natural hazards, events that change
or destroy human and wildlife habitats, damage
property, and harm or kill humans. Natural
hazards include earthquakes, landslides,
wildfires, volcanic eruptions, floods, storms,
and even possible impacts of asteroids.
- Human activities also can induce hazards through
resource acquisition, urban growth, land-use
decisions, and waste disposal. Such activities
can accelerate many natural changes.
- Natural hazards can present personal and societal
challenges because misidentifying the change or
incorrectly estimating the rate and scale of
change may result in either too little attention
and significant human costs or too much cost for
unneeded preventive measures.
RISKS AND BENEFITS
- Risk analysis considers the type of hazard and
estimates the number of people that might be
exposed and the number likely to suffer the
consequences. The results are used to determine
the options for reducing or eliminating risks.
- Students should understand the risks associated
with natural hazards (fires, floods, tornadoes,
hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions),
with chemical hazards (pollutants in air, water,
soil, and food), with biological hazards (pollen,
viruses, bacterial, and parasites), social
hazards (occupational safety and transportation),
and with personal hazards (smoking, dieting, and
drinking).
- Individuals can use a systematic approach to
thinking critically about risks and benefits.
Examples include applying probability estimates
to risks and comparing them to estimated personal
and social benefits.
- Important personal and social decisions are made
based on perceptions of benefits and risks.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY
- Science influences society through its knowledge
and world view. Scientific knowledge and the
procedures used by scientists influence the way
many individuals in society think about
themselves, others, and the environment. The
effect of science on society is neither entirely
beneficial nor entirely detrimental.
- Societal challenges often inspire questions for
scientific research, and social priorities often
influence research priorities through the
availability of funding for research.
- Technology influences society through its
products and processes. Technology influences the
quality of life and the ways people act and
interact. Technological changes are often
accompanied by social, political, and economic
changes that can be beneficial or detrimental to
individuals and to society. Social needs,
attitudes, and values influence the direction of
technological development.
- Science and technology have advanced through
contributions of many different people, in
different cultures, at different times in
history. Science and technology have contributed
enormously to economic growth and productivity
among societies and groups within societies.
- Scientists and engineers work in many different
settings, including colleges and universities,
businesses and industries, specific research
institutes, and government agencies.
- Scientists and engineers have ethical codes
requiring that human subjects involved with
research be fully informed about risks and
benefits associated with the research before the
individuals choose to participate. This ethic
extends to potential risks to communities and
property. In short, prior knowledge and consent
are required for research involving human
subjects or potential damage to property.
- Science cannot answer all questions and
technology cannot solve all human problems or
meet all human needs. Students should understand
the difference between scientific and other
questions. They should appreciate what science
and technology can reasonably contribute to
society and what they cannot do. For example, new
technologies often will decrease some risks and
increase others.
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SCIENCE AS A HUMAN ENDEAVOR
- Women and men of various social and ethnic
backgrounds – and with diverse interests,
talents, qualities, and motivations – engage
in the activities of science, engineering, and
related fields such as the health professions.
Some scientists work in teams, and some work
alone, but all communicate extensively with
others.
- Science requires different abilities, depending
on such factors as the field of study and type of
inquiry. Science is very much a human endeavor,
and the work of science relies on basic human
qualities, such as reasoning, insight, energy,
skill, and creativity – as well as on the
scientific habits of mind, such as intellectual
honesty, tolerance of ambiguity, skepticism, and
openness to new ideas.
NATURE OF SCIENCE
- Scientists formulate and test their explanations
of nature using observation, experiments, and
theoretical and mathematical models. Although all
scientific ideas are tentative and subject to
change and improvement in principle, for most
major ideas in science, there is much
experimental and observational confirmation.
Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in
the future. Scientists do and have changed their
ideas about nature when they encounter new
experimental evidence that does not match their
existing explanations.
- In areas where active research is being pursued
and in which there is not a great deal of
experimental or observational evidence and
understanding, it is normal for scientists to
differ with one another about the interpretation
of the evidence or theory being considered.
Different scientists might publish conflicting
experimental results or might draw different
conclusions from the same data. Ideally,
scientists acknowledge such conflict and work
towards finding evidence that will resolve their
disagreement.
- It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the
results of scientific investigations,
experiments, observations, theoretical models,
and the explanations proposed by other
scientists. Evaluation includes reviewing the
experimental procedures, examining the evidence,
identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out
statements that go beyond the evidence, and
suggesting alternative explanations for the same
observations. Although scientists may disagree
about explanations of phenomena, about
interpretations of data, or about the value of
rival theories, they do agree that questioning,
response to criticism, and open communication are
integral to the process of science. As scientific
knowledge evolves, major disagreements are
eventually resolved through such interactions
between scientists.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE
- Many individuals have contributed to the
traditions of science. Studying some of these
individuals provides further understanding of
scientific inquiry, science as a human endeavor,
the nature of science, and the relationships
between science and society.
- In historical perspective, science has been
practiced by different individuals in different
cultures. In looking at the history or many
peoples, one finds that scientists and engineers
of high achievement are considered to be among
the most valued contributors to their culture.
- Tracing the history of science can show how
difficult it was for scientific innovators to
break through the accepted ideas of their time to
reach the conclusions that we currently take for
granted.
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