Middle School

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. [Clarification Statement: Examples of models can be physical, graphical, or conceptual.]

Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying time and spatial scales. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on how processes change Earth’s surface at time and spatial scales that can be large (such as slow plate motions or the uplift of large mountain ranges) or small (such as rapid landslides or microscopic geochemical reactions), and how many geoscience processes (such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteor impacts) usually behave gradually but are punctuated by catastrophic events. Examples of geoscience processes include surface weathering and deposition by the movements of water, ice, and wind. Emphasis is on geoscience processes that shape local geographic features, where appropriate.]

Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth’s systems driven by energy from the Sun and the force of gravity. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the ways water changes its state as it moves through the multiple pathways of the hydrologic cycle. Examples of models can be conceptual or physical.] [Assessment Boundary: A quantitative understanding of the latent heats of vaporization and fusion is not assessed.]

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment. * [Clarification Statement: Examples of the design process include examining human environmental impacts, assessing the kinds of solutions that are feasible, and designing and evaluating solutions that could reduce that impact. Examples of human impacts can include water usage (such as the withdrawal of water from streams and aquifers or the construction of dams and levees), land usage (such as urban development, agriculture, or the removal of wetlands), and pollution (such as of the air, water, or land).]

Use an argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the conceptual understanding that cells form tissues and tissues form organs specialized for particular body functions. Examples could include the interaction of subsystems within a system and the normal functioning of those systems.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the mechanism of one body system independent of others. Assessment is limited to the circulatory, excretory, digestive, respiratory, muscular, and nervous systems.] 

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms. [Clarification Statement: Examples of local environmental conditions could include availability of food, light, space, and water. Examples of genetic factors could include large breed cattle and species of grass affecting growth of organisms. Examples of evidence could include drought decreasing plant growth, fertilizer increasing plant growth, different varieties of plant seeds growing at different rates in different conditions, and fish growing larger in large ponds than they do in small ponds.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include genetic mechanisms, gene regulation, or biochemical processes.]

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on cause-andeffect relationships between resources and growth of individual organisms and the numbers of organisms in ecosystems during periods of abundant and scarce resources.]

Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on describing the conservation of matter and flow of energy into and out of various ecosystems, and on defining the boundaries of the system.][Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the use of chemical reactions to describe the processes.]

Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred. [Clarification Statement: Examples of reactions could include burning sugar or steel wool, fat reacting with sodium hydroxide, and mixing zinc with hydrogen chloride.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to analysis of the following properties: density, melting point, boiling point, solubility, flammability, and odor.]

Plan 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. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on balanced (Newton’s First Law) and unbalanced forces in a system, qualitative comparisons of forces, mass and changes in motion (Newton’s Second Law), frame of reference, and specification of units.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to forces and changes in motion in one-dimension in an inertial reference frame and to change in one variable at a time. Assessment does not include the use of trigonometry.]

Construct, use, and present arguments to support the claim that when the kinetic energy of an object changes, energy is transferred to or from the object. [Clarification Statement: Examples of empirical evidence used in arguments could include an inventory or other representation of the energy before and after the transfer in the form of temperature changes or motion of object.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include calculations of energy.]

Develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on both light and mechanical waves. Examples of models could include drawings, simulations, and written descriptions.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to qualitative applications pertaining to light and mechanical waves.]

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

ADisciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Identify a model that shows the positions of Earth (with its tilt), the Sun, and the Moon as Earth revolves around the Sun and the Moon orbits Earth in the solar system.

Use a model to describe or compare the positions of objects or amount or path of light in the cyclic patterns of seasons, lunar phases, or eclipses.

Develop or use a model of the Earth-Sun-Moon system to compare or show patterns in seasons, lunar phases, or eclipses.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use observations to identify the process or agent that causes a particular change to Earth’s surface.

Use charts or other graphic organizers to identify whether a process or event was small/large scale and/or whether a process or event happened gradually/rapidly.

Explain how geoscience processes have caused changes to Earth’s surface at various time or spatial scales.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Identify an environmental problem caused by human activities/impact. 

Make a claim about how a particular method would work to reduce human impact on the environment. 

Select or evaluate a design for a method for minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use charts or other graphic organizers to identify the classification of structures that are part of human body systems and those that are not.

Use a model to identify or show parts that belong to a particular body system and the organization of those parts. 

Use evidence to make a claim about two body systems (e.g., circulatory, respiratory, muscular, digestive, nervous, excretory) working together to carry out various functions. 

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) 

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC) 

Ask questions to help identify factors that could be affecting the growth of an organism.

Analyze data to determine whether a particular factor is affecting the growth of organisms.

Use provided information to explain how the growth of organisms is influenced by various environmental and/or genetic factors.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use data or observations to identify resources (e.g., food, water, nutrients, space) that are necessary for organisms and populations of organisms to grow and survive.

Use data or observations to describe the effects of resource availability on organisms and/or populations of organisms.

Analyze data to identify evidence for a cause-effect relationship between resource availability and growth of organisms and/or populations of organisms.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use a model to identify the role of organisms (e.g., producer, consumer, decomposer) or nonliving things (e.g., the Sun, water, minerals, air) in cycling energy or matter in an ecosystem. 

Use a model to identify that energy is transferred or matter is cycled from one specific part of an ecosystem to another specific part. 

Develop a model to describe how energy is transferred or how matter is cycled among living and nonliving parts of ecosystems.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use observations or informational resources (e.g., charts, data tables) to identify properties of a substance.

Use data on the properties of two or more substances to determine if the samples are the same or different substances.

Use data or observations on the properties of substances before and after an interaction to determine if a chemical reaction occurred.

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Use observations to identify the effects of pushes and pulls on objects.

Use data from an investigation or observations to describe patterns of change in an object’s motion that take place when the force on an object changes or the mass of an object is changed. 

Describe necessary parts of an investigation to show how differences in the mass of an object or the force on an object will change the motion of the object. 

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) 

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Use evidence to make or support a claim that a transfer of energy occurs when the kinetic energy of an object changes.

Use observations or data to identify the forms of energy that increase or decrease when the kinetic energy of an object changes.

Identify questions that can help determine whether energy is being transferred in a system. 

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP)

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI)

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Developing and Using Models

The Universe and Its Stars

Earth and the Solar System

Target

Supporting

Target

Supporting

Earth’s Materials and Systems

The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes

Target

Supporting

Developing and Using Models

The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes

Energy and Matter

Target

Supporting

Human Impacts on Earth Systems

Cause and Effect

Target

Supporting

Structure and Function

Systems and System Models

Target

Supporting

Growth and Development of Organisms

Cause and Effect

Target

Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

Cause and Effect

Developing and Using Models

Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

Energy and Matter

Target

Supporting

Structure and Properties of Matter

Chemical Reactions

Target

Supporting

Target

Forces and Motion

Target

Supporting

Target

Supporting

Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer

Crosscutting Concepts (CCC)

Target

Supporting

Wave Properties

Electromagnetic Radiation

Structure and Function

Develop and/or use a model to describe phenomena.

Patterns of the apparent motion of the Sun, the Moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models.

Patterns

Patterns can be used to identify cause-and-effect relationships.

Systems and System Models

Constructing Explanations

Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources and the assumption that theories and laws that describe nature operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

The planet’s systems interact over scales that range from microscopic to global in size, and they operate over fractions of a second to billions of years. These interactions have shaped Earth’s history and will determine its future.

Water’s movements—both on the land and underground—cause weathering and erosion, which change the land’s surface features and create underground formations. 

Scale Proportion and Quantity

Time, space, and energy phenomena can be observed at various scales using models to study systems that are too large or too small.

Cause and Effect

Develop a model to describe unobservable mechanisms. 

Global movements of water and its changes in form are propelled by sunlight and gravity.

Water continually cycles among land, ocean, and atmosphere via transpiration, evaporation, condensation and crystallization, and precipitation, as well as downhill flows on land.

Within a natural or designed system, the transfer of energy drives the motion and/or cycling of matter.

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Apply scientific principles to design an object, tool, process, or system.

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things.

Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise.

Relationships can be classified as causal or correlational, and correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Use an oral and written argument supported by evidence to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon.

Developing and Using Models

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

In multicellular organisms, the body is a system of multiple interacting subsystems. These subsystems are groups of cells that work together to form tissues and organs that are specialized for particular body functions.

Systems may interact with other systems; they may have subsystems and be a part of larger complex systems.

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Genetic factors as well as local conditions affect the growth of the adult plant.

Phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause-and-effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.

Organisms, and populations of organisms, are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and with nonliving factors.

In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction.

Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources.

Cause-and-effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.

Develop a model to describe phenomena.

Food webs are models that demonstrate how matter and energy is transferred between producers, consumers, and decomposers as the three groups interact within an ecosystem. Transfers of matter into and out of the physical environment occur at every level. Decomposers recycle nutrients from dead plant or animal matter back to the soil in terrestrial environments or to the water in aquatic environments. The atoms that make up the organisms in an ecosystem are cycled repeatedly between the living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem.

The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a natural system.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Analyze and interpret data to determine similarities and differences in findings.

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Each pure substance has characteristic physical and chemical properties (for any bulk quantity under given conditions) that can be used to identify it.

Substances react chemically in characteristic ways. In a chemical process, the atoms that make up the original substances are regrouped into different molecules, and these new substances have different properties from those of the reactants.

Patterns

Macroscopic patterns are related to the nature of microscopic and atomic-level structure.

Scale, Proportion and Quantity

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Plan an investigation individually and collaboratively, and in the design: identify independent and dependent variables and controls, what tools are needed to do the gathering, how measurements will be recorded, and how many data are needed to support a claim.

The motion of an object is determined by the sum of the forces acting on it; if the total force on the object is not zero, its motion will change. The greater the mass of the object, the greater the force needed to achieve the same change in motion. For any given object, a larger force causes a larger change in motion.

Stability and Change

Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and forces at different scales.

Cause and Effect

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Construct, use, and present oral and written arguments supported by empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon.

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

When the motion energy of an object changes, there is inevitably some other change in energy at the same time.

Energy and Matter

Energy may take different forms (e.g., energy in fields, thermal energy, energy of motion).

Developing and Using Models

Develop and use a model to describe phenomena.

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

A sound wave needs a medium through which it is transmitted.

When light shines on an object, it is reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through the object, depending on the object’s material and the frequency (color) of the light.

The path that light travels can be traced as straight lines, except at surfaces between different transparent materials (e.g., air and water, air and glass) where the light path bends.

Structures can be designed to serve particular functions by taking into account properties of different materials and how materials can be shaped and used.