Stage H- Science

Descriptors

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

1. Formulate issue-specific hypothesis, generating inquiry questions for an issue investigational premise, differentiating qualitative and quantitative data and their applicability, using conceptual/mathematical/physical models, or previewing associated research.
2. Design scientific issue investigation which addresses proposed hypothesis(es), proposing applicable survey instruments, or selecting associated research, analysis, and communication components.
3. Conduct issue investigation, using technologies for data collection and assimilation, following established formats for random sampling, or following all procedural and safety precautions, materials and equipment handling directions.
4. Interpret and represent analysis of results evaluating data sets to explore explanations of unexpected responses and data concurrence, evaluating survey validity and reliability, or analyzing research and data for supporting or refuting the hypothesis.
5. Report, display and defend the process and findings of issue investigation, presenting oral or written final report for action response options for peer review, generating further questions or issues for consideration, or evaluating other resolutions or responses for action for applicable correlations, consolidation or explanations.

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

1. Formulate proposals for design investigation, generating strategies to test or model a scientific concept, suggesting appropriate supplies, materials, resources, and equipment to test concepts.
2. Create and conduct technological design testing objectively, sketching schematic of design or predictions, or incorporating the appropriate safety, available technology and equipment capabilities into construction and testing of design.
3. Collect and record data accurately, using consistent metric measuring and recording techniques with necessary precision, recording data accurately in appropriate format, or graphing data appropriately according to the tested variables.
4. Represent results of analysis to produce findings comparing data sets according to the design criteria, evaluating multiple prototype solutions to the overall design success criteria, or proposing explanations for sources of error in the data set with regards to product design flaws, or model limitations.
5. Report the process and results of a design investigation, selecting graphs and charts that effectively report the design data, making oral and/or written presentations, proposing logical explanations of success or errors, or generating additional design modifications which can be tested later.

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 explain the chemical nature of biological processes, describing photosynthesis in terms of basic requirements and products, correlating respiration, or diagramming the nitrogen, water, oxygen, and carbon cycles with reference to ecosystem-to-molecular levels.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to correlate the basis of cellular and organism reproductive processes, correlating possible genetic combinations to the type of reproductive process, diagramming and comparing mitotic and meiotic cell division, or distinguishing asexual and sexual (egg, sperm and zygote formation) reproduction with examples.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to compare evolutionary trends between kingdoms and phyla, exploring natural and applied hybridization, explaining the increasing sophistication of body systems correlating embryological, structural, and functional development, or exploring the impact of environmental factors on these trends.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore social and environmental responses of organisms, describing learned and inherited behaviors and responses across kingdoms and between/among phyla, explaining cyclic behaviors and responses in various species, or examining social behaviors of insects and vertebrates.

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 explore the implications of change and stability in ecosystems, identifying evolutionary adaptations brought on by environmental changes, analyzing factors that influence the size and stability of populations (e.g., temperature, climate, soil conditions, predation, habitat), or contrasting energy use by organisms.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to examine species' demise or success within ecosystems identifying problems for species conservation and extinction, projecting population changes when habitats are altered or destroyed (deforestation, desertification, wetlands destruction, introduction of exotic species),or researching economic and scientific value implications for changes to genetic diversity.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to study biogeography, researching global biomes, locating hemispheric, continental, and regional examples of each biome, or graphing associated mathematical comparison factors.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to analyze Illinois-specific ecosystems and biomes, modeling topographic features, population data, plant diversity and distribution from historic records, collecting scientific seasonal/annual local ecosystem data for direct connection to change and stability factors, or projecting scenarios of changes to local ecosystem for near- and long-term future contingencies.

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 examine patterns of interactions of energy with matter, describing and measuring how the interactions effect changes of state or properties, using quantitative data from investigations and simple chemical formulas and equations to support the concept of conservation of mass, comparing positions, movements, and relationships of atoms in different states, or predicting chemical reactivity from information in the Periodic Table.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore electric and magnetic energy fields, describing natural forces of static electricity and kinds of conductors and insulators, sketching the magnetic lines of force and basic polar attraction and repulsion, or creating electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields with simple explanations.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine the chemical and physical characteristics of matter, constructing and discussing models and charts that explain these properties, investigating the relationships among atoms, molecules, elements, and compounds, classifying objects and mixtures based on these properties, explaining the organization of elements in the Periodic Table, or investigating the properties of gases at varying temperatures and pressures.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine the conservation of matter and energy, quantifying conservation of mass, diagramming conservation of energy in common examples, or relating the concepts of force, momentum, power, motion, and work to the concepts of mass, distance, and velocity and their applicable constants, laws, and equations.

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 examine multiple dimensions of motion, tracing and measuring motion in terms of position, direction, acceleration, and speed in straight line, circular, and inclined paths, testing the harmonic and oscillating motion in everyday examples, or applying natural frequency to common examples and scientific studies.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate gravitational forces: explaining the comparisons of weight and mass with variations of 'g' forces and different locations, or calculating descent and free fall trajectories of objects in various settings.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the applications of scientific work, constructing variations of simple and compound machines to measure work, power, and force with varying frictional factors, calculating work efficiency of common and complex machines, or converting forces of nature (such as weather: tornadoes, wind) into Newtonian factors.

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 designs to investigate the explanations of the geologic features and structures, diagramming the established geologic eras, periods, and epochs, describing the geological events that led to the formation of the Great Lakes and Illinois, or relating physical and chemical properties of minerals.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine meteorological phenomena, describing large-scale and local weather systems, interpreting weather maps, describing the composition, properties, range of temperatures, and/or pressures in various layers of the atmosphere, describing relationships between the sun and the earth's climate, seasons and weather.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine Earth's resources quantitatively, demonstrating biodegradation of various substances, explaining specific examples of mining, or comparing renewability or availability of earth resources, including freshwater reserves.

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 design to compare the view of Earth as a planet, studying prehistoric and historic views of the universe, or explaining the absorption, reflection and transfer of the Sun's energy over land, water surfaces and features.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to compare the view from Earth to the solar system, relating gravitational force between planetary bodies in the solar system, introducing theories of origin of the solar system components, or explaining photographic or historic records and mathematical calculations of comets and their orbits.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to compare the view from Earth to the galaxies, calculating exponential scale of distances within and beyond the Milky Way galaxy, explaining the possible distortions of these views from Earth's surface, or classifying galaxies, etc. by size, composition, distances, established shapes, etc.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to compare the history of astronomy through the ages, modeling major constellations, explaining the roles that constellations played in the multi-cultural development of navigation and agriculture, explaining theories, past and present, for the origin and evolution of the universe, or comparing astrological beliefs to astronomical laws and theories.

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

1. Apply appropriate principles of safety within and beyond the science classroom, communicating and following clear instructions, mapping classrooms for safe egress and distances/times to access safety treatment features, demonstrating safety practices and emergency procedures pertaining to laboratory and field work, or explaining the basis of safety practices and procedures.
2. Apply scientific habits of mind to curricular investigations in life, environmental, physical, earth, and space sciences, evaluating evidence, inferring statements based on data, questioning sources of information, explaining necessity of manipulating only one variable at a time, or retrieving mathematical data accurately for scientific analysis.
3. Analyze scientific studies referenced in curricular investigations in life, environmental, physical, earth, and space sciences, reviewing experimental procedures or explanations for possible faulty reasoning or unproven statements (e.g., power line magnetic fields, abiogenesis models), distinguishing relationships of scientific theories, models, hypotheses, experiments, and methodologies, or distinguishing fact from opinion and science from pseudoscience.

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

1. Explore interaction of resource acquisition, technological development, and ecosystem impact, documenting actual local, regional, national, or global examples, proposing alternative solutions to interaction impact, or estimating costs of such interactions.
2. Explore natural resource conservation and management programs, calculating home/school electric or water usage, etc., to propose plans for increased efficiency, evaluating their effect on natural resources and the local economy, researching the past, current, and future local landfill plans, or examining state wildlife programs for controlled breeding or population maintenance.
3. Explore policies which affect local science or technology issues, researching applicable issue of local concern (e.g., subdivision development, groundwater contamination), developing classroom criteria to measure effectiveness of policies, developing survey instruments to assess depths of informed opinions on issues, collecting pertinent data from expert local sources, or analyzing data and policy correlation.

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