2: The student will apply process skills to develop an understanding of physical science including: properties, changes of properties of matter, motion and forces, and transfer of energy.

2.1: The student will observe, compare, and classify properties of matter.

2.1.1: compares and classifies the states of matter; solids, liquids, gases, and plasma

Freezing Point of Salt Water
Phase Changes
Phases of Water

2.1.3: identifies and communicates properties of matter including but not limited to, boiling point, solubility, and density.

Density
Density Experiment: Slice and Dice
Density Laboratory
Determining Density via Water Displacement

2.2: The student will observe, measure, infer, and classify changes in properties of matter.

2.2.1: understands the relationship of atoms to elements and elements to compounds.

Bohr Model of Hydrogen
Electron Configuration
Element Builder

2.2.2: measures and graphs the effects of temperature on matter.

Distance-Time Graphs
Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs
Force and Fan Carts
Graphing Skills
Measuring Trees

2.3: The student will investigate motion and forces.

2.3.1: identifies the forces that act on an object (e.g., gravity and friction)

Atwood Machine
Force and Fan Carts
Roller Coaster Physics

2.3.2: describes, measures, and represents data on a graph showing the motion of an object (position, direction of motion, speed).

Distance-Time Graphs
Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs
Force and Fan Carts
Free Fall Tower
Graphing Skills

2.3.3: recognizes and describes examples of Newton's Laws of Motion.

2D Collisions
Air Track
Atwood Machine
Fan Cart Physics
Force and Fan Carts
Uniform Circular Motion

2.3.4: investigates and explains how simple machines multiply force at the expense of distance.

Ants on a Slant (Inclined Plane)
Atwood Machine
Levers
Pulley Lab
Pulleys
Torque and Moment of Inertia
Wheel and Axle

2.4: The student will understand and demonstrate the transfer of energy.

2.4.1: understands the difference between potential and kinetic energy.

Air Track
Energy Conversions
Energy of a Pendulum
Inclined Plane - Sliding Objects
Period of a Pendulum
Potential Energy on Shelves
Roller Coaster Physics
Simple Harmonic Motion

2.4.2: understands that when work is done energy transforms from one form to another, including mechanical, heat, light, sound, electrical, chemical, and nuclear energy, yet is conserved.

Energy Conversion in a System
Energy Conversions
Pulley Lab
Pulleys

2.4.3: observes and communicates how light (electromagnetic) energy interacts with matter: transmitted, reflected, refracted, and absorbed.

Ray Tracing (Lenses)

2.4.4: understands that heat energy can be transferred from hot to cold by radiation, convection, and conduction.

Conduction and Convection
Energy Conversions
Heat Transfer by Conduction
Phase Changes
Radiation

3: The student will apply process skills to explore and understand structure and function in living systems, reproduction and heredity, regulation and behavior, populations and ecosystems, and diversity and adaptations of organisms.

3.1: The student will model structures of organisms and relate functions to the structures.

3.1.1: will understand the cell theory; that all organisms are composed of one or more cells, cells are the basic unit of life, and that cells come from other cells.

Cell Structure

3.1.2: relates the structure of cells, organs, tissues, organ systems, and whole organisms to their functions

Circulatory System

3.1.3: compares organisms composed of single cells with organisms that are multi-cellular.

Paramecium Homeostasis

3.2: The student will understand the role of reproduction and heredity for all living things.

3.2.1: differentiates between asexual and sexual reproduction of organisms.

Cell Division
Flower Pollination
Pollination: Flower to Fruit

3.2.2: understands how hereditary information of each cell is passed from one generation to the next

Cell Division
Chicken Genetics
Inheritance
Mouse Genetics (One Trait)
Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)

3.2.3: infers that the characteristics of an organism result from heredity and interactions with the environment

Chicken Genetics
Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Inheritance
Interdependence of Plants and Animals
Mouse Genetics (One Trait)
Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)

3.3: The student will describe homeostasis, the regulation and balance of internal conditions in response to a changing external environment.

3.3.1: understands that internal and/or environmental conditions affect an organism's behavior and/or response in order to maintain and regulate stable internal conditions to survive in a continually changing environment.

Human Homeostasis
Natural Selection
Paramecium Homeostasis
Prairie Ecosystem

3.3.2: recognizes that the survival of all organisms requires the ingestion of materials, the intake and release of energy, growth, release of wastes and responses to environmental change.

Natural Selection
Prairie Ecosystem

3.4: The student will identify and relate interactions of populations of organisms within an ecosystem.

3.4.1: recognizes that all populations living together (biotic resources) and the physical factors (abiotic resources) with which they interact compose an ecosystem.

Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Rabbit Population by Season

3.4.2: understands how limiting factors determine the carrying capacity of an ecosystem.

Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Rabbit Population by Season

3.4.3: traces the energy flow from the sun (source of radiant energy) to producers (via photosynthesis - chemical energy) to consumers and decomposers in food webs.

Cell Energy Cycle
Energy Conversions
Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Photosynthesis Lab
Pond Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem

3.5: The student will observe the diversity of living things and relate their adaptations to their survival or extinction.

3.5.1: concludes that species of animals, plants, and microorganisms may look dissimilar on the outside but have similarities in internal structures, developmental characteristics, chemical processes, and genomes.

Human Evolution - Skull Analysis

3.5.2: understands that adaptations of organisms (changes in structure, function, or behavior that accumulate over successive generations) contribute to biological diversity.

Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Natural Selection

3.5.3: associates extinction of a species with environmental changes and insufficient adaptive characteristics.

Natural Selection

4: The student will apply process skills to explore and develop an understanding of the structure of the earth system, earth's history, and earth in the solar system.

4.1: The student will understand that the structure of the earth system is continuously changing due to earth's physical and chemical processes.

4.1.1: identifies properties of the solid earth, the oceans and fresh water, and the atmosphere.

Mineral Identification

4.1.2: models earth's cycles, constructive and destructive processes, and weather systems.

Rock Cycle

4.2: The student will understand past and present earth processes and their similarity.

4.2.1: understands that earth processes observed today (including movement of lithospheric plates and changes in atmospheric conditions) are similar to those that occurred in the past; earth history is also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of a comet or asteroid.

Plate Tectonics

4.3: The student will identify and classify stars, planets, and other solar system components.

4.3.1: compares and contrasts the characteristics of stars, planets, moons, comets, and asteroids.

Solar System

4.3.2: models spatial relationships of the earth/moon/planets/sun system to scale.

Phases of the Moon
Solar System
Solar System Explorer
Tides

4.4: The student will model motions and identify forces that explain earth phenomena.

4.4.1: demonstrates and models object/space/time relationships that explain phenomena such as the day, the month, the year, seasons, phases of the moon, eclipses and tides.

2D Eclipse
3D Eclipse
Eclipse
Moon Phases
Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases
Ocean Tides
Phases of the Moon
Seasons Around the World
Seasons in 3D
Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun
Seasons: Why do we have them?
Summer and Winter
Tides

4.4.2: describes how the angle of incidence of solar energy striking earth's surface affects the amount of heat energy absorbed at earth's surface.

Bohr Model of Hydrogen
Bohr Model: Introduction
Energy Conversions
Heat Absorption
Herschel Experiment
Laser Reflection
Summer and Winter