Stage D - Science
Descriptors
11A - Students who meet the standard know and apply the
concepts, principles, and processes of scientific inquiry.
- Formulate contextual inquiry questions brainstorming questions,
converting questions into hypothesis statements, researching
associated scientific knowledge and skills, or identifying
simple independent and dependent variables to be investigated.
- Propose procedural steps to investigate inquiry hypothesis
applying logical sequence for investigatory process, constructing
applicable data tables, selecting necessary materials and
equipment, or identifying appropriate safety measures to
follow.
- Conduct inquiry investigation collecting quantitative
and qualitative data from trials, using applicable metric
units, observing appropriate and necessary safety precautions,
or validating data for accuracy.
- Construct charts and visualizations to display data choosing
appropriate display media for data analysis, or incorporating
available/appropriate technology.
- Analyze data trends summarizing inferences, explaining
data points including outliers and discrepancies, or synthesizing
collected data as evidence for explanations.
- Communicate investigation hypothesis, procedure, and explanations,
presenting the results of observations and explanations
orally and in written format, or generating further questions
for investigation to verify or refute hypothesis or explanation.
11B - Students who meet the standard know and apply the
concepts, principles, and processes of technological design.
- Identify a contextual technological design dilemma, brainstorming
design questions for consideration (e.g., how pendulums
work, how heat is transmitted), researching associated knowledge
and skills, or identifying independent and dependent variables.
- Begin investigations into technological design, identifying
design parameters, brainstorming design options and necessary
materials, sketching design plans, determining logical sequence
for design procedures, generating success criteria indicators,
ranges and graphic display options, or identifying appropriate
safety measures to follow.
- Construct design prototype, selecting necessary materials
and equipment, or following procedural steps and necessary
safety measures.
- Construct charts and visualizations to display data, selecting
appropriate graphic display of data, recording appropriate
quantitative and qualitative data from multiple trials,
or incorporating technology.
- Analyze data to evaluate design selection or adaptability,
synthesizing collected data, or comparing designs, processes,
sources of error and success criteria.
- Communicate design solution, procedure, and explanations,
preparing graphs and charts to report the results, generating
future design modifications, or suggesting alternative applications
for design.
12A - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that explain how living things function, adapt, and change.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
explore the patterns of change in life cycles of plants
and animals, comparing the stages within simple life cycles,
examining and comparing microscopic and macroscopic life
forms and their structures, or making generalizations of
observed patterns.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
explore the similarities and differences of generations
of offspring, comparing and contrasting specific characteristics
of offspring with their parents from immaturity to maturity
(e.g., teeth, coloration, metamorphosis variations), linking
characteristics (e.g., habit of walking, kind of teeth,
use of appendages) among animals to changes over time.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine the nature of inheritance in structural and functional
features of plants and animals, applying general rules of
probability to predict characteristics of offspring from
selected parents, or comparing body structures (or functions)
from animal fossils that are no longer evident in contemporary
animals.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine the nature of learned behavior in animals, distinguishing
specific characteristics as learned or inherited in various
examples, or
- conducting simple surveys relating to learned behaviors
or attitudes of classmates.
12B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe how living things interact with each other and
with their environment.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine relationships among organisms in their environment,
diagramming a simple relationship between plants and/or
animals (i.e., predator/prey, parasite/host, consumer/producer)
commonly found in local habitats, describing simple food
chains and webs in various habitats, considering habitat
changes due to changes in moisture, temperature, or seasons,
or contrasting the behavioral patterns and adaptations of
organisms from different ecosystems.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
compare the adaptations of physical features of organisms
to their environments, identifying the physical features
that help plants or animals survive in their environments,
or reporting on a specific plant or animal which has adapted
to different environments over time.
12C - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe properties of matter and energy and the interactions
between them.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
compare the properties of various kinds of energy, demonstrating
how light travels in a straight line and can be reflected,
refracted, or absorbed, experimenting with a variety of
ways that heat can be produced, transmitted or absorbed,
examining how sound can be detected in animals, exploring
how sound is transmitted in different objects, identifying
various sources of power in community resources, exploring
heat distribution in the classroom or building, or explaining
the interrelationships among light, heat, sound, chemical,
electrical and mechanical energy.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
associate the properties of common elements, common compounds,
and simple mixtures, categorizing heterogeneous and homogeneous
samples, analyzing the physical and chemical properties
of these samples, or distinguishing the energy requirements
to separate physical and chemical combinations.
12D - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe force and motion and the principles that explain
them.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
introduce constant, variable and periodic motion, describing
examples of motions in everyday situations, exploring pendulum
variations of length, mass and initial energy inputs, creating
student-action models to demonstrate motions in classroom
or playground activities, such as walking and running in
straight lines and in circular paths.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
analyze forces, collecting and graphing mathematical data
on mechanical advantage using simple machines, comparing
the relationships of weight and mass on Earth, the moon
or other planets, or exploring the effect of friction in
common examples.
12E - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe the features and processes of Earth and its
resources.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine the Earth's land, water and atmospheric conditions,
describing erosion/weathering in terms of impact on features
on Earth, diagramming the water cycle to explain changes
that occur in the atmosphere during different weather conditions,
or predicting atmospheric conditions from cloud, barometric,
and other observations.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
analyze the natural weather patterns, describing short-
to long-term changes in Earth's climate, suggesting possible
causes of climatic changes and effects on biotic communities,
or evaluating evidence that human activities have long-term
effects on global climate.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
evaluate natural resource supplies, mapping availabilities
of these resources, or examining the human causes of diminished
supplies of resources.
12F - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that explain the composition and structure of the universe
and Earth's place in it.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
study celestial objects in space, comparing planetary objects'
composition and distances, introducing the categories of
stars and their characteristics, explaining how planets
change their position in the sky relative to the stars,
or outlining the kinds of space research advances, risks
and benefits.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
document the natural cycles and patterns in the solar system,
using models of planetary orbits to predict the planets'
changing positions, the Moon's changing phases, Earth's
changing seasons, the visible constellations' paths, or
introducing the relationship of solar system cycles to planning
for space flights.
13A - Students who meet the standard know and apply accepted
practices of science.
- Apply the appropriate principles of safety, identifying
tools and proper steps for use of scientific equipment,
using equipment and materials in a safe and proper manner
when conducting inquiry design investigations, caring for
classroom animal collections properly, identifying ways
and places that chemicals can be properly stored, stating
general rules to follow in case dangerous chemicals are
ingested or inhaled, predicting potential causes of accidents
at school, home, and in the community, or following classroom
rules for preparation, procedures and clean-up.
- Apply scientific habits of mind, recognizing the necessity
of controlled variables in inquiry and design investigations,
identifying faulty procedural steps which could cause different
results, recording observations accurately and honestly,
generating questions and strategies to test science concepts
using critical and creative thinking, or contrasting hypotheses,
predictions, laws, theories and assumptions.
13B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe the interaction between science, technology,
and society.
- Apply scientific technologies, incorporating appropriate
data collection, storage, retrieval and communication capabilities
in classroom investigations, describing how these technologies
have enabled scientists to observe phenomenon beyond the
capabilities of unaided human senses (radar, microscopy,
etc.).
- Associate the interactions of technology in science and
societal situations, comparing and contrasting its impact,
risks and benefits in historical and current physical environmental
settings, evaluating available data models of this impact,
displaying graphically the influences of these interactions
in the lives and careers of people, investigating ways that
technology has changed local, national or global environments.
- Associate the interactions of societal decisions in science
and technology innovations and discoveries, comparing how
personal or community choices affect local, regional and
global environments in historic, current or projected future
settings, explaining the changes in society brought about
by the space program, or role-playing public or personal
informed decision-making about energy choices, resource
availability, conservation, etc.
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