Science Curriculum
POPULATIONS AND ECOSYSTEMS
Scientific Inquiry
• Asks scientific questions.
• Generates hypotheses.
• Follows or designs a procedure to answer a scientific question.
• Records and analyzes data collected in an investigation.
• Draws conclusions from data collected in an investigation.
• Explains how scientific ideas change over time.
Ecosystems
• Explains ecosystems consist of living and nonliving things.
• Explains living things in an ecosystem are related by how they get energy (e.g., producer, consumer, decomposer), how they share energy (e.g., herbivores, carnivores, omnivores), and through symbiotic relationships (e.g., parasitism, commensalistic, mutualistic).
Energy and Matter Cycle through Ecosystems
• Traces energy from the sun to producers, to consumers, to decomposers by using food webs and food chains.
• Identifies matter (e.g., carbon and nitrogen) that cycles through ecosystems.
• Explains the process by which water cycles through ecosystems.
Biomes
• Describes the characteristics and locations of the major biomes of the world.
• Explains how the reduction of biodiversity can impact biomes and the people who live in them.
MATTER, ENERGY, AND FORCES
Scientific Inquiry
• Asks scientific questions.
• Generates hypotheses.
• Follows or designs a procedure to answer a scientific question.
• Records and analyzes data collected in an investigation.
• Draws conclusions from data collected in an investigation.
• Explains how scientific ideas change over time.
Matter
• Explains matter as anything that has mass and takes up space.
• Explains matter has physical properties (e.g., being magnetic) and chemical properties (e.g., reacts with vinegar) that help distinguish one kind of matter from other kinds of matter.
• Explains matter can exist in three states (i.e., solid, liquid, gas) characterized by different particle movement.
Energy
• Explains energy is the ability to cause change in matter.
• Explains energy comes in different forms.
• Identifies multiple forms of energy: energy of motion, stored energy, chemical energy, light energy, heat energy, electrical energy.
• Explains energy can be changed from one form to another.
• Traces the flow of energy from one form to another.
• Explains heat is a form of energy and the amount of heat energy is measured by temperature.
• Explains heat can move by conduction, convection, and radiation.
• Explains heat (energy) can change matter from one state to another.
Simple Machines
• Explains forces cause a change in speed or direction of an object.
• Identifies simple machines: lever, inclined planes, wheel and axle.
• Explains how simple machines change the size or direction of a force.
• Uses simple machines (or combinations of simple machines) to make a task easier.