Stage E - Science
Descriptors
11A - Students who meet the standard know and apply the
concepts, principles, and processes of scientific inquiry.
- Construct an inquiry hypothesis that can be investigated
researching pertinent context, proposing the logical sequence
of steps, securing the appropriate materials and equipment,
or determining data-collection strategies and format for
approved investigation.
- Conduct scientific inquiry investigation observing safety
precautions and following procedural steps accurately over
multiple trials.
- Collect qualitative and quantitative data from investigation
using available technologies, determining the necessary
required precision, or validating data for accuracy.
- Organize and display data determining most appropriate
visualization strategies for collected data, or using graphs
(i.e., double bar, double line, stem and leaf plots) and
technologies.
- Analyze data to produce reasonable explanations comparing
and summarizing data from multiple trials, interpreting
trends, evaluating conflicting data, or determining sources
of error.
- Communicate analysis and conclusions from investigation,
interpreting graphs and charts, preparing oral, and/or written
conclusions for peer review, or generating additional questions
that can be tested.
11B - Students who meet the standard know and apply the
concepts, principles, and processes of technological design.
- Identify an innovative technological design from ordinary
surroundings or circumstances brainstorming common design
questions (e.g., how to squeeze toothpaste better, how to
fly a better paper airplane), researching background information,
or suggesting the appropriate materials, equipment, data-collection
strategies and success factors for approved investigation.
- Construct selected technological innovation sketching
design, proposing the logical sequence of steps for construction,
collecting appropriate materials, supplies, and safety equipment,
or completing assembly of innovation.
- Test prototype conducting multiple trials, collecting
reliable and precise data, or recording observations.
- Analyze data comparing and summarizing data, interpreting
trends, evaluating conflicting data, or determining sources
of error.
- Communicate design findings selecting graphs and charts
that effectively report the data, preparing oral and written
investigation conclusions, or generating alternative design
modifications which can be tested from original investigated
question.
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 and stability at the micro-
and macroscopic levels of organisms (including humans),
comparing the stages of simple life cycles and energy requirements,
or identifying structures and their functions in cells,
tissues, organs, systems and organisms (including humans).
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
distinguish the similarities and differences of offspring
in organisms (including humans), comparing specific characteristics
of offspring with their parents, or predicting possible
genetic combinations from selected parental characteristics.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine the nature of inheritance in structural and functional
features of organisms (including humans), describing genetic
and environmental influences on the features of organisms,
distinguishing between inherited and acquired characteristics,
or explaining how cells respond to genetic and environmental
influences.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine the nature of learned behavior or responses in all
organisms (including humans), distinguishing characteristics
as learned or inherited, or conducting simple surveys relating
to learned behaviors of classmates, and/or family members.
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
categorize organisms (including humans) by their energy
relationships in their environments, classifying organisms
by their position in a food web, grouping organisms according
to their adaptive internal and/or external features, contrasting
food webs within and among different biomes, identifying
the biotic and abiotic factors associated with specific
habitats, or making simple inferences to the closed systems
of other planets.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
explain competitive, adaptive and survival potential of
species in different local or global ecosystems, identifying
survival characteristics of organisms, explaining abiotic
or biotic factors which threaten health or survival of populations
or species (including humans), or identifying theories explaining
mass extinctions.
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
explore energy, demonstrating how mirrors, prisms, diffraction
gratings and filters direct light patterns, diagramming
how electricity can be produced from different sources of
energy, explaining how electrical energy can be converted
to light, heat, sound, and magnetic energy, analyzing common
examples of potential and kinetic energy, or comparing insulation,
conduction, convection, and radiation of heat.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
distinguish the properties of matter, separating components
of mixtures by solubility, magnetic properties and densities,
analyzing compound samples by quantitative methods, graphing
the temperature variations associated with phase changes
of simple substances, or categorizing the properties of
common elements into a graphic format.
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
explore constant, variable and periodic motion, tracing
and measuring motion of vehicles (e.g., cars, bicycles,
skates) in terms of position, direction, acceleration and
speed in straight line, circular and inclined paths, introducing
the concepts of harmonic and oscillating motion in everyday
examples, or applying the concepts of natural frequency.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
analyze actions and reactions, examining initial and final
forces, manipulating simple direct and inverse proportions
to forces, explaining thrust, weight, lift and drag in flight,
analyzing gears and gear ratios to do work, or demonstrating
Newton's Laws of Motion in terms of space flight.
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
analyze global topographic features modeling the effect
of glaciation on a surface with applications to Illinois
topography, or using satellite pictures, various topographic
and thematic maps to indicate demographic, economic and
weather patterns, and/or their interrelationships to each
other.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
analyze weather and climatic conditions, comparing historic
and current precipitation, barometric, and temperature records,
and trends, projecting future trends based on past and current
records, or making inferences about cloud formations and
weather conditions.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
examine long-term global, national and local renewable and
nonrenewable resource supplies, explaining how historic
economic choices have affected resource supplies, or focusing
on comparative historic and projected water supplies and
demands such as those for the local community, Illinois,
the nation, and/or the world.
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
introduce concepts that explain planetary, interplanetary
and stellar characteristics and cycles, generalizing the
composition and features of the inner and outer planets,
asteroids, comets, and different star types, applying orbital
concepts for seasonal positions of constellations, applying
apparent motions in the sky to use the sky as a clock, compass
or calendar, explaining how the planets change their position
in the sky relative to the stars over time using varying
astronomic images.
- Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to
introduce the concepts of gravitation in the solar system
and beyond, identifying the general applications of gravitational
forces on Earth and in near and far space examples, explaining
continuous free fall in space flight, or applying solar
system cycles to trajectories in space flight and research.
13A - Students who meet the standard know and apply accepted
practices of science.
- Apply appropriate principles of safety wearing appropriate
safety gear during inquiry or design investigations, demonstrating
how to use a fire extinguisher, identifying safety procedures
for preparation, process and conclusion of science investigations
to minimize safety hazards, or recognizing potential poisonous
plants or substances in classroom, outdoor or home settings,
or role-playing safe reactions to safety crisis situations.
- Apply scientific habits of mind explaining why similar
investigations should but may not produce similar results,
identifying circumstances which distort how variables interact,
labeling accurate observations fully and carefully, or generating
questions and strategies to test science concepts using
critical and creative thinking.
13B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts
that describe the interaction between science, technology,
and society.
- Apply scientific technologies collecting, storing, retrieving,
and communicating data in classroom research and investigations,
or researching the progression of technological advances
in pure and applied scientific investigations and innovations.
- Investigate the interactions of technology in science
and societal situations displaying graphically the improvements
and their impact in local and global agriculture, transportation,
health, sanitation, engineering, and manufacturing settings
over time, or explaining different perceptions about discoveries,
innovations, and trends in places, events, and regions.
- Investigate the interactions of societal decisions in
science and technology innovations and discoveries exploring
the family, local, national, or global impact of them, examining
conceptual, mathematical and policy implications of energy
conservation programs for classrooms, schools, homes and
communities, or describing the changes in tools, careers,
resource use and productivity over the centuries.
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