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ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP
ABILITIES NECESSARY TO DO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY:
- Ask a question about objects, organisms, and
events in the environment
- Plan and conduct a simple investigation
- Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data
and extend the senses
- Use data to construct a reasonable explanation
- Communicate investigations and explanations
ALL STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY:
- Scientific invesitgations involved asking and
answering a question and comparing the answer
with what scientists already know about the
world.
- Scientists use different kinds of investigations
depending on the questions they are trying to
answer. Types of investigations include
describing objects, events, and organisms;
classifying them; and doing a fair test
(experimenting).
- Simple instruments such as magnifiers,
thermometers, and rulers, provide more
information than scientists obtain using only
their senses
- Scientists develop explanations using
observations (evidence) and what they already
know about the world (scientific knowledge). Good
explanations are based on evidence from
investigations.
- Scientists make the results of their
investigations public; they describe the
investigations in ways that enable others to
repeat the investigations.
- Scientists review and ask questions about the
results of other scientists' work.
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PROPERTIES OF OBJECTS AND MATERIALS
- Objects have many observable properties,
including size, weight, shape, color,
temperature, and the ability to react with other
substances. Those properties can be measured
using tools, such as rulers, balances, and
thermometers.
- Objects are made of one or more materials, such
as paper, wood, and metal. Objects can be
described by the properties of the materials from
which they are made, and those properties can be
used to separate or sort a group of objects or
materials.
- Materials can exist in different states - solid,
liquid, and gas. Some common materials, such as
water, can be changed from one state to another
by heating or cooling.
POSITION AND MOTION OF OBJECTS
- The position of an object can be described by
locating it relative to another object or the
background.
- An object's motion can be described by tracing
and measuring its position over time.
- The position and motion of objects can be changed
by pushing or pulling. The size of the change is
related to the strength of the push or pull.
- Sound is produced by vibrating objects. The pitch
of the sound can be varied by changing the rate
of vibration.
LIGHT, HEAT AND MAGNETISM
- Light travels in a straight line until it strikes
an object. Light can be reflected by a mirror,
refracted by a lens, or absorbed by an object.
- Heat can be produced in many ways, suck as
burning, rubbing, or mixing one substance with
another. Heat can move from one object to another
by conduction.
- Electricity in circuits can produce light, heat,
sound, and magnetic effects. Electrical circuits
require a complete loop through which an
electrical current can pass.
- Magnets attract and repel each other and certain
kinds of other materials.
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THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISMS
- Organisms have basic needs. For example, animals
need air, water, and food; plants require air,
water, nutrients, and light. Organisms can
survive only in environments in which their needs
can be met. The world has many different
environments, and distinct environments support
the life of different types of organisms.
- Each plant or animal has different structures
that serve different functions in growth,
survival, and reproduction. For example, humans
have distinct body structures for walking,
holding, seeing, and talking.
- The behavior of individual organisms is
influenced by internal cues (such as hunger) and
by external cues (such as a change in the
environment). Humans and other organisms have
senses that help them detect internal and
external cues.
LIFE CYCLES OF ORGANISMS
- Plants and animals have life cycles that include
being born, developing into adults, reproducing,
and eventually dying. The details of this life
cycle are different for different organisms.
- Plants and animals closely resemble their
parents.
- Many characteristics of an organism are inherited
from the parents of the organism, but other
characteristics result from an individual's
interactions with the environment. Inherited
characteristics include the color of flowers and
the number of limbs on an animal. Other features,
such as the ability to ride a bicycle, are
learned through interactions with the environment
and cannot be passed on to the next generation.
ORGANISMS AND ENVIRONMENTS
- All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat
plants for food. Other animals eat animals that
eat the plants.
- An organism's patters of behavior are related to
the nature of that organism's environment,
including the kinds and numbers of other
organisms present, the availability of food and
resources, and the physical characteristics of
the environment. When the environment changes,
some plants and animals survive and reproduce,
and others die or move to new locations.
- All organisms cause changes in the environment
where they live. Some of these changes are
detrimental to the organism or other organisms,
whereas others are beneficial.
- Humans depend on their natural and constructed
environments. Humans change environment in ways
that can be either beneficial or detrimental for
themselves and other organisms.
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PROPERTIES OF EARTH MATERIALS
- Earth materials are solid rocks and soils, water,
and the gases of the atmosphere. The varied
materials have different physical and chemical
properties, which make them useful in different
ways, for example, as building materials, as
sources of fuel, or for growing the plants we use
as food. Earth materials provide many of the
resources that humans use.
- Soils have properties of color and texture,
capacity to retain water, and ability to support
the growth of many kinds of plants, including
those in our food supply.
- Fossils provide evidence about the plants and
animals that lived long ago and the nature of the
environment at that time.
OBJECTS IN THE SKY
- The sun, moon, starts, clouds, birds, and
airplanes all have properties, locations, and
movements that can be observed and described.
- The sun provides the light and heat necessary to
maintain the temperature of the earth.
CHANGES IN EARTH AND SKY
- The surface of the earth changes. Some changes
are due to slow processes, such as erosion and
weathering, and some changes are due to rapid
processes, such as landslides, volcanic
eruptions, and earthquakes.
- Weather changes from day to day and over the
seasons. Weather can be described by measurable
quantities, such as temperature, wind direction
and speed, and precipitation.
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ABILITIES OF TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN
- Identify a simple problem: In problem
identification, children should develop the
ability to explain a problem in their own words
and identify a specific task and solution related
to the problem.
- Propose a solution: Students should make
proposals to build something or get something to
work better; they should be able to describe and
communicate their ideas. Students should
recognize that designing a solution might have
constraints such as cost, materials, time, space,
or safety.
- Implement proposed solutions: Children should
develop abilities to work individually and
collaboratively and to use suitable tools,
techniques, and quantitative measurements when
appropriate. Students should demonstrate the
ability to balance simple constraints in problem
solving.
- Evaluate a product or design: Students should
evaluate their own results or solutions to
problems, as well as those of other children, by
considering how well a product or design met the
challenge to solve a problem. When possible,
students should use measurements and include
constraints and other criteria in their
evaluations. They should modify designs based on
the results of evaluations.
- Communicate a problem, design, and solution:
Students abilities should include oral, written,
and pictorial communication of the design process
and product. The communication might be show and
tell, group discussions, short written reports,
or pictures, depending on the students' abilities
and the design product
UNDERSTANDING ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- People have always had questions about their
world. Science is one way of answering questions
and explaining the natural world.
- People have always had problems and invented
tools and techniques (ways of doing something) to
solve problems. Trying to determine the effects
of solutions helps people avoid some new
problems.
- Scientists and engineers often work in teams with
different individuals doing different things that
contribute to the results. This understanding
focuses primarily on teams working together and
secondarily, on the combination of scientist and
engineer teams.
- Women and men of all ages, backgrounds, and
groups engage in a variety of scientific and
technological work.
- Tools help scientists make better observations,
measurements, and equipment for investigations.
They help scientists see, measure, and do things
that they could not otherwise see, measure, and
do.
ABILITIES TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN NATURAL OBJECTS AND
OBJECTS MADE BY HUMANS
- Some objects occur in nature; others have been
designed and made by people to solve human
problems and enhance the quality of life.
- Objects can be categorized into two groups,
natural and designed.
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PERSONAL HEALTH
- Safety and security are basic needs of humans.
Safety involves freedom from danger, risk, or
injury. Security involves feelings of confidence
and lack of anxiety and fear. Students
understandings include following safety rules for
home and school, preventing abuse and neglect,
avoiding injury, knowing whom to ask for help,
and when and how to say no.
- Individuals have some responsibility for their
own health. Students should engage in personal
care – dental hygiene, cleanliness, and
exercise – that will maintain and improve
health. Understandings include how communicable
diseases, such as colds, are transmitted and some
of the body's defense mechanisms that prevent or
overcome illness.
- Nutrition is essential to health. Students should
understand how the body uses food and how various
foods contribute to health. Recommendations for
good nutrition include eating a variety of foods,
eating less sugar, and eating less fat.
- Different substances can damage the body and how
it functions. Such substances include tobacco,
alcohol, over-the-counter medicines, and illicit
drugs, can be beneficial, but that any substance
can be harmful if used in appropriately.
CHARACTERISTICS AND CHANGES IN POPULATION
- Human populations include groups of individuals
living in a particular location. One important
characteristic of human population is the
population density – the number of
individuals of a particular population that lives
in a give amount of space.
- The size of a human population can increase or
decrease. Populations will increase unless other
factors such as disease or famine decrease the
population.
TYPES OF RESOURCES
- Resources are things that we get from the living
and nonliving environment to meet the needs and
wants of a population.
- Some resources are basic materials, such as air,
water, and soil; some are produces from basic
resources, such as food, fuel, and building
materials; and some resources are nonmaterial,
such as quiet places, beauty, security, and
safety.
- The supply of many resources is limited. If used,
resources can be extended through recycling and
decreased use.
CHANGES IN ENVIRONMENTS
- Environments are the space, conditions, and
factors that affect an individual's and a
population's ability to survive and their quality
of life.
- Changes in environments can be natural or
influenced by humans. Some changes are good, some
are bad, and some are neither good nor bad.
Pollution is a change in the environment that can
influence the health, survival, or activities of
organisms including humans.
- Some environmental changes occur slowly, and
others occur rapidly. Students should understand
the different consequences of changing
environments in small increments over long
periods as compared with changing environments in
large increments over short periods.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN LOCAL CHALLENGES
- People continue inventing new ways of doing
things, solving problems, and getting work done.
New ideas and inventions often affect other
people; sometimes they effects are good and
sometimes they are bad. It is helpful to try to
determine in advance how ideas and inventions
will affect other people.
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SCIENCE AS A HUMAN ENDEAVOR
- Science and technology have been practiced by
people for a long time.
- Men and women have made a variety of
contributions throughout the history of science
and technology.
- Although men and women using scientific inquiry
have learned much about the objects, events, and
phenomena in nature, much more remains to be
understood. Science will never be finished.
- Many people choose science as a career and devote
their entire lives to studying it. Many people
derive great pleasure from doing science.
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