Stage G - Science

Descriptors

11A - Students who meet the standard know and apply the concepts, principles, and processes of scientific inquiry.

1. Formulate contextual hypotheses generating an if-then, cause- effect premise, differentiating qualitative and quantitative data and their applicability, using conceptual/mathematical/physical models, or previewing existing research as primary reading sources.
2. Design inquiry investigation which addresses proposed hypothesis, determining choice of variables, preparing data-collecting format, or incorporating all procedural and safety precautions, materials and equipment handling directions.
3. Conduct inquiry investigation choosing applicable metric units of measurement with estimated scale and range of results for student-generated data tables, using direct, indirect, or remote technologies for observing and measuring, conducting sufficient multiple trials, or recording all necessary data and observations objectively.
4. Interpret and represent analysis of results to produce findings, observing trends within data sets, evaluating data sets to explore explanations of outliers or sources of error, or analyzing observations and data which may support or refute inquiry hypothesis,
5. Report and display the process and findings of inquiry investigation, presenting oral or written final report for peer review, generating further questions for alternative investigations or procedural refinements, or evaluating other investigations for consolidation/refinement of procedures or data explanation.

11B - Students who meet the standard know and apply the concepts, principles, and processes of technological design.

1. Identify an important historic innovation or model of a technological design, examining inventions or entrepreneurial events driven by science or engineering principles, searching pertinent historical foundation, or determining the success criteria, design constraints, and testing logistics that were encountered.
2. Construct selected technological innovation model, sketching a progression of design stages and prototypes, proposing the logical sequence of steps in design construction, identifying original and comparable simulation materials for construction, predicting proportional scale for actual parameters and materials, or completing assembly of innovation model.
3. Test prototype predicting proportional scale for actual parameters and materials, conducting multiple trials according to success criteria, scale, and design constraints, or recording reliable and precise data and anecdotal observations.
4. Analyze data to evaluate design, comparing and summarizing data from multiple model trials, or correlating historic conditions and data to model testing.
5. Communicate design evaluation report, presenting oral and written report on historical significance of selected technological design and tested model, its original constraints and conditions, or generating possible alternative designs which could have been considered historically.

12A - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that explain how living things function, adapt, and change.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine the cellular-to-organism interrelationships, comparing the increasingly complex structure and function of cells, tissues, organs and organ systems, demonstrating the processes for biological classification, analyzing normal and abnormal growth and health in organisms (with a focus on humans), describing how physiological systems carry out vital functions (e.g., respiration, digestion, reproduction, photosynthesis, excretion, and temperature regulation).
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine macro- and micro-evolution in organisms, comparing and assessing changes in the features or forms of organisms over broad time periods to their adaptive functions and competitive advantages, describing how natural selection accounts for diversity of species over many generations.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the science of genetics, tracing the history of genetics, correlating the principles of genetics to mitotic cell division and simple mathematical probabilities, researching applied genetics in plant and animal breeding, or associating genetic factors for inheritance in humans, including genetic disorders.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine the cellular coordination of responses, describing how the nervous system communicates between cells within the whole organism, tracing stimulus-response paths in various nervous systems, or analyzing the effect of substances (e.g., oxygen, food, blood, hormones, drugs) circulating through the body.

12B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe how living things interact with each other and with their environment.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to examine the energy requirements of ecosystems, tracing the roles and population ratios of producers, consumers, and decomposers in food chains and webs, or identifying the biomass relationship with the transfer of energy from the sun to final consumers.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designsto relate the chemical cycles in ecosystems, modeling the water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles with local references, or researching groundwater resources and potential sources of contamination with local examples.
   Apply scientific inquiries or technological designsto explore the interactions between an ecosystem's organisms, examining types of interactive relationships (e.g., mutualism, predation, parasitism) with specific examples, or explaining interrelationship of adaptations and ecosystem survival.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to introduce population dynamics in ecosystems, exploring models of population growth rates, determining factors that limit population growth, or researching specific instances of population explosions over time.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to model global biomes, identifying the general climate, soil, and inhabitant of the six major land-based biomes, mapping the global biomes, or comparing the graphical meteorological data (temperature, precipitation) of biomes/ecosystems.

12C - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe properties of matter and energy and the interactions between them.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to compare heat, light, and sound energies, distinguishing heat and temperature, their measurements, and the relationship to mass, recording temperatures of simple substances collected during melting/freezing or boiling/condensing to trace phase changes, identifying ways of production and travel for heat, light, and sound in various media, or relating sound reflection, loudness, frequency, and pitch in common examples.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the nature of energy conversions and conservation, describing energy and its different forms with common examples, categorizing energy into kinetic and potential states, explaining energy conversion and conservation possibilities, or introducing the connections to concepts of force, momentum, power, and motion.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the basic structure of matter measuring mass and volumes of common solids (regular and irregular) and liquids to introduce density ratios, comparing ratios of different masses and different volumes of the same kinds of samples, relating how historic models of elemental matter from ancient Greeks to medieval alchemists evolved to current representations and explanations, classifying comparable properties of representative elements or similar compounds (mixtures, acids, bases, salts, metals, non-metals), or constructing simple chemical structure models to explain chemical combinations, states, and properties.

12D - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe force and motion and the principles that explain them.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore frames of reference for measuring motion, visualizing the possible reference frames in multiple motion examples, or comparing scope of motion (straight line, projectile, inclined, free fall, circular) of various objects.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to measure motion, explaining the dimensions of speed/time with directional units, comparing speed, average speed, velocity, acceleration, and momentum with common examples, using simple machines to demonstrate the principles of mechanics, or analyzing components of motion graphically.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to measure force, explaining the dimensions of force graphically, comparing common examples of balanced or unbalanced forces in everyday use, or examining frictional forces in common examples.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore laws and theories associated with motion, comparing common situations to each of Newton's three laws of motion, using the appropriate units, introducing applications to Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, or incorporating the variant of air resistance.

12E - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe the features and processes of Earth and its resources.

1. Apply scientific inquiries and technological design to investigate large-scale dynamic forces that change geologic features, diagramming single global features over time as affected by continental drift, identifying properties and origins of rocks and minerals, or explaining impact of weathering, erosion, and deposition.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate large-scale meteorological forces distinguishing weather from climate, examining global weather data over broad periods of time, or explaining how atmospheric circulation is driven by solar heating.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate large-scale oceanographic forces, mapping ocean motions and life zones, identifying the quantitative proportions of ocean and fresh water.

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.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the earth in space with its moon, plotting how the relative motions and positions of the sun, earth, and moon influence eclipses, moon phases, and tides, comparing the composition and surface features of the earth and moon, using imaging, magnifications and displays to model the moon's surface features, or calculating earth and moon rise and set over time.
2. Apply scientific designs to explore the solar system, comparing the major features of the solar system including the nine planets, their moons, orbital shapes, surface and atmospheric conditions, orientation and periods of rotation and revolution, charting orbital factors of comets, asteroids, meteors, etc., or explaining imaging displays of different kinds of solar system objects.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to study the galaxies, describing the relationship of galactic components (e.g., age, composition, properties), or explaining imaging displays of views of galactic objects.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to study space exploration, creating a timeline which denotes the important events associated with the global space programs, identifying the kinds of technologies which are currently used for studying the solar system and universe, or reporting on applicable historic studies which have provided discoveries, tools or explanations associated with space exploration.

13A - Students who meet the standard know and apply accepted practices of science.

1. Apply appropriate principles of safety, identifying potentially hazardous chemical combinations in the home or classroom, suggesting responses and reactions in home and classroom settings in case of threatening chemical scenarios, following all necessary safety precautions, cleaning and disposal procedures for scientific investigations, demonstrating safe transport, precise use, and appropriate storage for scientific equipment, or providing safe and ethical care for all classroom organism collections.
2. Apply scientific habits of mind, generating questions and strategies to test science concepts using critical and creative thinking, identifying instances of how scientific reasoning, insight, skill, creativity, intellectual honesty, tolerance of ambiguity, skepticism, persistence, and openness to new ideas have been integral to scientific discoveries and technological improvements, or comparing scientist's work and habits of mind to work in other careers.
3. Analyze cases of scientific studies, studying historic examples of valid investigations from curricular life, environmental, physical, earth, and space sciences, finding examples of faulty or biased scientific reasoning which distorted scientific understanding, or citing experimental and observational strategies in direct, indirect, and remote investigations.

13B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe the interaction between science, technology, and society.

1. Explore scientific technologies in life, environmental, physical, earth, and space sciences, identifying advances in the past century, describing technologies used by scientists to forecast, explain, or test major events in each of the sciences, or diagramming processes and products from applicable technologies.
2. Explore the interactions of science and technology in multicultural, societal, and economic settings, analyzing how the introduction of a new technology has affected human activities worldwide, or associating personal biographic information about science leaders from around the world.
3. Explore historic, multicultural societal influences on scientific discoveries and technological innovations, comparing the knowledge, skills, and methods of early and modern scientists in the sciences, or finding examples of rejection of scientific or technological advances by cultures based on belief systems.
4. Explore scientific concepts in career and technical knowledge and skills in everyday settings, interviewing adults to identify specific applications of scientific concepts or technological innovations, researching job market trends for anticipated changes in the next ten-year period based on projected technology interventions, resource depletion or access, or economic interactions, or demonstrating relationships between improving technology, all science fields, and educational/training requirements for such careers.

back to Science Classroom Assessments and Performance Descriptors